Farewell to the groves of shillelagh and shamrock

Farewell to the girls of old Ireland all round

May their hearts be as merry as ever I would wish them

When far away across the ocean I’m bound.

 

Oh, my father is old and my mother quite feeble;

To leave their own country it grieves their heart sore,

Oh the tears in great drops down their cheeks they are rolling

To think they must die upon some foreign shore.

 

But what matter to me where my bones they be buried

If in peace and contentment I can spend my life

Oh the green fields of Canada they daily are blooming

It’s there I’ll put an end to my miseries and strife.

 

Then it’s pack up your sea stores and tarry no longer

Ten dollars a week isn’t very bad pay

With no taxes or tithes to devour up your wages

When you’re on the green fields of Amerikay.

 

The sheep run unsheared and the land’s gone to rushes

The handyman’s gone and the winders of creels,

Away across the ocean, good journeyman tailors

And fiddlers that play out the old mountain reels

 

Ah but I ‘mind the time when old Ireland was flourishing,

When lots of her tradesmen could work for good pay

But since our manufacturies have crossed the Atlantic

It’s now we must follow to Amerikay.

 

Farewell to the dances in homes now deserted

When tips struck the lightning in planks from the floor

The paving and crigging of hobnails on flagstones

The tears of the old folk and shouts of encore.

 

For the landlords and bailiffs in vile combination

Have forced us from hearthstone and homestead away

May the crowbar brigade all be doomed to damnation

When we’re on the green fields of Amerikay.

 

The timber grows thick on the slopes of Columbia

With Douglas in grandeur two hundred feet tall

The salmon and sturgeon dam streamlet and river

and the high Rocky Mountains look down over all.

 

Over prairie and plain sure the wheat waves all golden

The maple gives sugar to sweeten your tay

You won’t want for corn cob way out in Saskatchewan

When you’re on the green fields of Amerikay.

 

And if you grow weary of pleasure and plenty

Of fruit from the orchard and fish from the foam

There’s health and good hunting way back in the forests

Where herds of great elk and wild buffalo roam.

 

And it’s now to conclude and to finish my ditty

If ever friendless Irishman chances my way

With the best in the house I will treat him, and welcome,

At home on the green fields of Amerikay.