Let's treat the over-consumption of dark beer and the ensuing drunken stumble-round in celebration of the day as read. Not all of us who claim the heritage are drunkards.
I, to cite but one example of the exception, stopped drinking. About four hours ago. Ah, yes that scintillating "Irish wit" I claim to possess. Now I know how far my humor can take me-the next punctuation marks the demarcation. I offered what follows a number of years ago on this occasion, and traditionalist that I am, I feel they are painfully still appropriate.
The Irish's arrival in America was, for its time, the largest and most prolonged migration of one ethnic group since the nations of the world had begun keeping track of such things. Those who fled Ireland for America, and they were not only family members, but extended families, whole neighborhoods and, in many instances, entire villages and townships, were half a step ahead of starvation and destitution.
To remain in Ireland was to die but fleeing to America was often death of another kind, only more slowly. Having already been made into outcasts in their own country, the immigrants hardly noticed how their treatment in the New World often resembled their handling in the old.
And still, they came, by the thousands every month, by the tens of thousands and into the millions. At one point, very nearly twenty percent of all Americans were of Irish ancestry which is a statistic offered on Saint Patrick's Day to help not just those of us who were part of the Irish Diaspora to remember where they came from but to remind all of us how far we have yet to go.
Farewell to the girls of old Ireland all round.
And may their hearts be as merry as ever they could wish for.
As far away o'er the ocean I'm bound.
Oh, my father is old and my mother quite feeble;
To leave their own country it would grieve their heart sore,
Oh the tears down their cheeks in great floods they are rolling
To think they must die upon some foreign shore.
But what matters to me where my bones they may lie buried
If in peace and contentment I can spend my life
The green fields of Amerikay they daily are calling
It's there I'll find an end to my miseries and strife.
So pack up your sea stores now consider it no longer,
Ten dollars a week isn't very bad pay.
With no taxes or tithe to devour up your wages
Across on the green fields of Amerikay.
The lint dams are gone and the looms are lying idle
Gone are the winders of baskets and creels,
And away o'er the ocean, go, journeyman cowboy,
And fiddlers that play out the old mountain reels.
Ah and I mind the time when old Ireland was flourishing,
And most of her tradesmen did work for good pay
Ah, but since our manufacturers have crossed the Atlantic
It's now we must follow on to Amerikay.
And now to conclude and to finish my ditty
If e'er a friendless Irishman should happen my way
With the best in the house, I will treat him, and welcome him
At home on the green fields of Amerikay."
-bill kenny
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