Lyr Req: My Own Dear Galway Bay (from D Keane)

Subject: Galway Bay
From: GUEST,Canadian Guest
Date: 17 Oct 13 - 08:33 PM

Looking for the lyrics to Galway Bay. NOT the Bing Crosby version.
This one was recorded by Dolores Keane and begins iwth the words

It's far away I am today - From Scenes I roamed as a boy ?.

Much Appreciated

Thanks

Subject: RE: Galway Bay
From: GUEST,MikeK
Date: 17 Oct 13 - 08:45 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galway_Bay_%28song%29

Subject: RE: Galway Bay
From: Connacht Rambler
Date: 18 Oct 13 - 10:54 AM

Or . . .

Are There Two Galway Bays?

Subject: RE: Galway Bay
From: GUEST,Galway boy
Date: 18 Oct 13 - 11:49 AM

or more?

If I ever cross the sea again to Ireland
It will be when I have heard she's gone away
For I can't forget the way she used to nag me
For she had a mouth as wide as Galway Bay

More?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Own Dear Galway Bay (from D Keane)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 06:45 AM

’tis far away I am today from scenes I roamed a boy
And long ago, the hour I know, I first saw Illinois
But time nor tide nor waters wide can wean my heart away
For ever true it flies to you, my dear old Galway Bay

My chosen bride is by my side, her brown hair silver-grey
Her daughter Rose, as like her grows as April dawn today
Our only boy, his mother’s joy, his father’s pride and stay
With gifts like these, I’d live at ease, were I near Galway Bay

Oh, grey and bleak, by shore and creek, the rugged rocks abound
But sweet and green, the grass between, as grows on Irish ground
So friendship fond, all wealth beyond, and love that lives away
Bless each poor home beside your foam, my dear old Galway Bay

Had I youth’s blood and hopeful mood and heart of fire once more
For all the gold the world might hold, I’d never quit your shore
I’d live content what e’er God sent with neighbours old and gray
And lay my bones ‘neath churchyard stones, beside you, Galway Bay

The blessing of a poor old man be with you night and day
The blessing of a lonely man whose heart will soon be clay
’tis all the Heaven I’ll ask of God upon my dying day
My soul to soar for ever more above you, Galway Bay.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Own Dear Galway Bay (from D Keane)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 09:52 AM

From the note to the ong on the Clare County libraty website
HERE
Jim Carroll

Galway Bay
Peggy McMahon
Cloonlaheen, Doolough
Recorded in singer’s home, September 2000
Carroll Mackenzie Collection
HERE
Jim Carroll

“The earlier of the two ‘Galway Bay’s, this was composed by Francis Fahy (1854-1935). It was originally written to air of ‘Skibbereen’ but is now better known sung to one made by Tony Small. Francis Fahy was born on September 29, 1854 in Kinvara, County Galway. He took a civil service exam and emigrated to England in 1873. In London, he helped found the Southwark Literary Club, to engender a love of Irish culture amongst the children of Irish emigrants. This became the Irish Literary Society, and later, the Irish Texts Society, being addressed by the likes of Yeats and Shaw. In 1886, he became president of the emerging Conradh na Gaeilge in London, a position he held until 1908. He retired from the civil service at 65, and died on in 1935, aged 81. His most memorable poems and songs include ‘The Ould Plaid Shawl’, ‘The Queen of Connemara’, the original ‘Galway Bay’, and ‘The Tide Full In’. His publications included: ‘The Child's Irish Song Book’, 1881, ‘The Irish Reciter’, 1882, ‘Irish History in Rhyme’, 1882, and ‘Irish Songs and Poems’, 1887.”
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Own Dear Galway Bay (from D Keane)
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 11:54 AM

In recent times, Fahy's family home served as a pub under the name " The Old Plaid Shawl". It then became a restaurant under the name " The Tide Full Inn" - based on the title of another of his poems. Now more prosaically called "Foxe's"!

Regards