If You Ever Go To Ireland
We’ll Steal Your Heart Away
If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,
It maybe at the closin’ of your day
You will sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh
And see the sun go down on Galway Bay.
To hear again the ripple of the trout stream
The women in the meadows making hay,
To sit beside the turf fire in the cabin
And watch the barefoot gossoons at their play.
For the breezes blow across the sea from Ireland
Are perfumed by the heather as they blow.
And the women in the upland diggin’ praties
Speak a language that the strangers do not know.
For the strangers came and tried to teach us their way,
They scorned us for bein’ what we are,
But they might as well go chasin’ after moon beams,
Or light a penny candle from a star.
And if there’s going to be a life hereafter,
And somehow I am sure there’s going to be,
I will ask my God to let me make my heaven,
In that dear land across the Irish sea.
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MY JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE IN IRELAND
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I thorougly enjoyed Yoke the Pony. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Thank you, Onisha, for your interest and support. I’m delighted and honoured to know you read and enjoyed ‘Yoke the Pony’. I value your judgement and appreciate your kind comments.
That’s the first time I’ve been acquainted with the lyrics to the whole of that song! I knew the first verse, of course (everyone does, broadly and sometimes ribaldly paraphrased) but ‘the barefoot gossoons at their play’? Thank you. It has risen considerably in my appreciation as a lyric.
Thank you, Frederick. The song was written by Dr. Arthur Colahan in Leicester in 1947 and was popularised by Bing Crosby. Crosby recorded the song on November 27, 1947 and changed some of the lyrics so as to be less political. It became a huge hit around the world with Irish emigrants and reached the No. 3 position in the Billboard charts in the USA.
‘the barefoot gossoons at their play’ were the children playing happily their simple games.