Galway Bay

a 1947 popular song
words and music by Arthur Colahan


The sheet music:


Accompaniment track:


Lyrics

  1. If you ever go across the sea to Ireland
    Then maybe at the closing of your day
    You will sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh
    And see the sun go down on Galway Bay
    Just to hear again the ripple of the trout stream
    The women in the meadows making hay
    And to sit beside a turf-fire in the cabin
    And watch the barefoot gossoons at their play
  2. For the breezes blowing o’er the seas from Ireland
    Are perfumed by the heather as they blow
    And the women in the uplands diggin’ praties
    Speak a language that the strangers do not know
    For the strangers came and tried to teach us their way
    They scorned us just for being what we are
    But they might as well go chasing after moonbeams
    Or light penny candle from a star

And if there is going to be a life hereafter
And somehow I am sure there’s going to be
I will ask my God to let me make my heaven
In that dear land across the Irish sea


Sung here by Fred Feild: