Fr Ray Kelly - Galway Bay

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland,
then maybe at the closing of your day,
you can sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh,
and see the sun go down on Galway Bay.

Just to hear again the ripple of the trout stream,
The women in the meadow making hay,
just to sit beside the turf fire in a cabin,
and watch the barefoot gosoons as they play.

For the breezes blowing o'er the sea's from Ireland,
Are perfumed by the heather as they blow,
And the women in the uplands digging praties,
Speak a language that the strangers do not know.

Yet the strangers came and tried to teach us their ways,
And they scorned us just for being what we are,
But they might as well go chasing after moon beams,
or light a penny candle from a star.

And if there's going to be be a life here after,
And faith somehow I'm 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.