You can hear this on YouTube. I have boldfaced the words that are different from those posted by ossonflags above. As far as meaning goes, the differences are insignificant, but in some cases they improve the rhyme.


MY SON IN AMERIKAY
(Alf MacLochlainn)
As recorded by Patrick Street on “Live from Patrick Street” (2006)

A long time ago in the county Mayo, me story it first began,
Before this country was finally cured by the First Economical Plan.
A brave young man had to leave his home and sail far over the sea,
But he got well paid in the job and he stayed on the shores of Amerikay.

He got on very well but he sent nothing home and his mother began to think
That maybe he'd run away with a blonde, or was spending his money on drink.
She wrote him a letter inquiring the news and sent it straight away,
And upon the cover she carefully wrote: "To me son in Amerikay."

Well, the postman collected the letter she wrote and he drove in his van to Cork
Where he placed it upon a liner in Cobh that landed in New York.
And there was the whiskey and everything else; the mailbags lay on the quay,
And among the rest was a letter addressed: "To me son in Amerikay."

Ah, American postmen, I needn't relate, they are rather like me and you,
And when at last to this letter they came, they didn't know what to do.
They looked up all the official lists, but these had nothing to say.
There was no directory could help them to find her son in Amerikay.

And, it lay round the office for years and years, and it gave all the boys a laugh,
Until at length it found some use in training of the staff.
To every new postman who came on the job, it was shown as Example A:
Oh, "Insufficiently addressed: ‘To me son in Amerikay.’”

Well, the son he got older and wiser too, and at last to himself he said:
"Oh, how are things going with me mother at home? Or is she alive or dead?"
He walked round the block to the GPO, where he stood with his cap in his hand.
"By any chance would there be a letter for me from me mother in Ireland?"

"Oh, yes, kind sir, and here it is; we've been waiting for you to call.
We knew someone someday would come from Cork or old Donegal,
From the two hundred million that’s living now in the whole of the USA.
For a mother in Ireland, at last we have found a son in Amerikay."