sorefingers:

"
Quote
"Not to go too much into the background (as it all starts in Dublin in the 1790s), there's a tune/words split. "
Endquote
I think you are at the end of street not the start with that date, but
please do elaborate.
"

,,, I'm not sure how much of this is lodged on Mudcat, but here's how it begins:

Get six of my comrades to carry my coffin,
Six girls of the city to bear me on,
And each of them carry a bunch of red roses,
So they don't smell me as they walk along.

And muffle your drums, and play your fifes lowly,
Play the dead march as you carry me on,
And fire your bright muskets all over my coffin,
Saying: 'There goes an unfortunate rake to his doom!"

...

My jewel, my joy, don't trouble me with the drum,
    Sound the dead march as my corpse goes along;
And over my dead body throw handfuls of laurel,
    And let them all know that I'm going to my rest.

... both sets can be tracked back to Ireland in the 1790s.

The first full text is "The Buck's Elegy" (circa 1850), beginning:

As I was walking down Covent Garden,
        Listen awhile, and the truth I'll relate,
Who should I meet but my dearest comrade,
        Wrapt up in flannel, so hard was his fate.

... none of this has sod-all to do with with the use of the term "Nation" in a specific stanza of a version of Laredo coming out of the USA in prolly 1890, and describing a situation which is VERY specifically set outside Tom Sherman's bar-room in the town of Laredo in Texas sometime previous to 1845.

But hey, what do I know?

Robin