Clare County Library: Songs of Clare - My Heart is in Ireland sung by Tom Lenihan

My Heart is in Ireland

Tom Lenihan
Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay
Recorded in singer's home, March 1988

The bark and the billow dashed glorious on,
And sad was the note of the sailor by song.
Yet sad was my bosom and bursting with woe,
For my heart is in Ireland wherever I go,
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go.

More dear than the flower that Italy yields
Are the red-breasted daisies that spangle the fields.
The shamrock, the hawthorn the wild blossoms grow.
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go,
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go.

The roses and lilies abandon the plains
Though the summer’s gone by still the shamrock remains.
Like a friend in misfortune it blooms ‘neath the snow.
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go,
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go.

I sigh and I vow if e’er I get home,
No more from my dear native land will I roam.
The harp shall resound and the goblet will flow.
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go,
My heart is in Ireland wherever I go.

“We’re pretty sure Tom learned this from ‘671 Irish Songs and Ballads’ (N.Y., 1899), a songbook the family received from America when he was young. There seems to be little information on it other than this fascinating note by someone describing hearing it sung by an old singer in America:

‘The above verses, so sweet in their simplicity, so full of exquisite pathos, are said to have been written by a young Presbyterian minister from the North of Ireland who was drowned in the Schuylkill at Philadelphia. The story goes that they were found in the pocket of this unfortunate gentleman.’”
Jim Carroll

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