Elizabeth Willoughby Varian (née Treacy) was a poet and nationalist. Born in Ballymena, Co. Antrim of a unionist family, she published patriotic poems under the pen name ‘Finola’ from the 1850s onward, chiefly in the Nation and the Irishman. She was a strong advocate of Irish self-government, feeling that social justice could not be achieved without independence, but her emphasis was on improving the lives of the marginalised, rather than on physical force nationalism. Her first collection, Poems (1851), was published in Belfast; eighteen years later Ralph Varian included a selection of her work in his anthology, The Harp of Erin. After she and Varian married in 1871, Elizabeth moved to Cork but continued to be active in the Home Rule movement, especially in Ulster. Her two publications from the 1870s were Never Forsake the Ship and Other Poems (1974) and The Political and National Poems of Finola (1877). Much of her poetry belongs to the tradition of the nationalist ballad, but many of the poems included here are more subtle and complex in their effects. There is considerable skill evident in her handling of form and cadence, and her arguments in favour of active responsibility for improving the lives of others remain impressive.