Erin's lovely home

Wolfgang

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ERIN'S LOVELY HOME
(traditional)

My father, he being a farmer reared to industry
He had four sons, two men who'd grown, and lovely daughters three
Our land's too small to serve us all so some of us must roam
Our friends may mourn for we'll never return to Erin's lovely home

My father, he sold the second cow and he borrowed twenty pounds
It being in the pleasant month of May we sailed from Belfast town
With thousands more we left our shore in safety to roam
Our friends may mourn for we'll never return to Erin's lovely home

We hadn't been long sailing when fever it seized our crew
Falling like the autumn leaves and overboard were threw
The ocean waves rolled o'er our graves, our bed the ocean foam
Our friends may mourn for we'll never return to Erin's lovely home

From The Music of What Happens (Cathie Ryan):

I learned the following song as a teenager from the singing of the late Geordie Hanna from Co, Fermanagh. It is about one of the many 'coffin ships' that sailed from Ireland in the mid 1800's during the worst years of the Famine. Of the million people forced to leave Ireland at that time, many sailed to North America on ships that had no standards of hygiene and were often unseaworthy. Tens of thousands of famine emigrants died, both at sea and after reaching land, as a result of 'ship fever'. There is no accurate accounting of those who died.