Rose of Tralee 2024
Galway Bay
by Dr. Arthur Nicholas Whistler Colahan
If you ever go across the sea
to Ireland
Then maybe at the closing
of your day
You will sit and watch
the moonrise 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 meadows making hay
And to sit beside a turf fire in the cabin
and watch the barefoot gossoons at the play
For the breezes blowing o’er
the seas from Ireland
are perfum’d by the heather as they blow;
And the women in the uplands diggin’ praties
speak a language that the strangers
do not know
Yet the strangers came and tried
to teach us their way
They scorn’d us just for bein’ what we are;
But they might as well go
chasin’ after moonbeams
or light a penny candle from
a star
And if there is going to be
a life in the 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
Yea, I’ll ask my God to let me
make my heaven
in that dear land
far across the Irish Sea.