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If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,
It may be at the closing of your day;
And to see again the moonlight over Claddis,
And watch the sun go down on Galway Bay.
Just to see again the rippling of the trout stream,
The women in the meadows making hay;
Or to sit beside a turf fire in a cabin,
And to watch the fearful possum at their play.
Now the breezes blowing across the sea to 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.
Now the strangers came and tried to teach us their ways,
They scorned us just for being who we are;
But they might as well go chasing after moonbeams,
Or light a penny-candle from a star.
Now if there's going to be a life hereafter,
And somehow... I know there's going to be;
I will ask my God to let me make my heaven,
In that dear land across the Irish sea...........
Maybe someday I'll go back again to Ireland,
If my dear old wife would only pass away!
She's nearly got my heart broke with her nagging,
She's got a mouth as big as Galway Bay.
See her drinking sixteen pints of Pabst Blue Ribbon,
And then she can walk home without a sway;
If the sea was beer instead of salty water,
She would live and die in Galway Bay.
See her drinking sixteen pints at Pat Joe Murphy's,
The barman says, "I think it's time you go."
Well, she doesn't try to answer him in Gaelic,
But in language that the clergy do not know.
On her back she has tattooed a map of Ireland,
And when she takes her bath on Saturday;
She rubs the Sunlight Soap around by Claddagh,
Just to watch the suds go down by Galway Bay.
