My favourite emigration song is is called "Mary Clare Malloy", written by Tom Russell, and sung by Dolores Keane on Tom Russell's CD titled "The Man From God Knows Where" .

Mary Clare Malloy
(Tom Russell)
(With Intro tune first of "Staten Island' on the fiddle)

1.        My name is Mary Clare Malloy, I was born in County Cork
        At 18 years of age I sailed for the shores of olde New York
        With seven hundred picture brides, all torn 'tween hope and fear
        At last we spied Manhattan and the famous Isle of Tears

2.        My first taste of the New World turned to ashes very fast
        The ones who entered freely were from first and second class
        We steerage folk remained on board as if we were exiles,
        The captain turned the ship around and sailed to Ellis Isle

3.        We disembarked and stood in line with chalks marks on our coats
         "X" for mental illness, if "E" back on the boat
        They asked us what our breeding was and could we read or write
        Oh, the sound of women weeping swept the dormitories at night

4.        My best friend was deported back to a poor Killea home
        Another sent to Swinbourne Isle died of cholera alone
        The rest of us were shipped to trains, bound for Midwest States
        To wild and stormy prairie lands, and our prospective mates

        He's an American Primitive man
        In an American Primitive Land
        Irish eyes and calloused hands
        American Primitive man