If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,
Then maybe at the closing of your day
You will sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh,
And watch the sun go down on Galway Bay.
Just to hear again the ripple of the trout stream,
The women in the meadows making hay,
And to sit beside a turf- fire in the cabin
And I to watch the barefoot Gossoons at their play
For the breezes blowing o’ er the seas from Ireland
Are perfumed by the heather as they blow
And the women in the uplands diggin’ praties,
Speak a language that the strangers do not know.
For the strangers came and tried to teach us their way
They scorn’d us just for being what we are
But they might as well go chasing after moonbeams
Or light a penny candle from a star
And if there is going to be life hereafter,
And somehow I am sure there’s going to be
I will ask God to let me make my heaven
In that dear land across the Irish sea