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Irish Poems

We offer up original poems about Ireland or the Irish on this page. If you have one you'd like to contribute, simply email us.

Motherland
One Day Irish
The Wearing of the Green


Motherland

I posted this one a long time ago here, when I was using a different name, and thought I'd post it again for Saint Patty's day coming up.. May the luck of the Irish be with you!

Dear Ireland-
Sweet Dreams to those who love you.
Island of the mists,
Avalon of the pasts,
A place where heroes
Are apt to live.
Great Gods and
Greater Goddesses
Roam their eternal years
Among the hills and castles,
Valleys and streams.
Motherland,
Dear Ireland-
Sweet Dreams to those who love you.

Rebecca (GWYNNEYD)


One Day Irish

Beat the drum, the whistle blow;
The music calls and we will go,
The soul of Ireland to seek,
For on this day, and in this week,
Let every land and every heart
With Celtic spirit play a part.
Now sing of colleens fair and sweet,
Sing of hills all green and neat,
Mountains vanished in the cloud,
Fairy people rare and proud.
Sing of bold, defiant folk,
Still unconquered, never broke;

Selkie lovers from the sea,
Soldiers, marching, banners free.
Sing of all the ages past
And when the day is done, at last,
Pray for blessing, that there be
Peace in Ireland, endlessly.

Cortland E. Richmond


The Wearing of the Green

Oh! Paddy, dear, and did you hear the news that's going round,
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
Saint Patrick's day no more we'll keep, his color can't be seen,
For there's a bloody law agin' the Wearin' of the Green.

I met with Napper Tandy and he tuk me by the hand,
And he said "How's poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?
She's the most distressful country, that ever you have seen;
They're hanging men and women there for wearing of the green.

Then since the color we must wear, is England's cruel red,
Sure Ireland's sons will ne'er forget the blood that they have shed;
You may take the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
But 'twill take root and flourish still, tho' underfoot 'tis trod;

When the law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer time their verdure dare not show;
Then I will change the color I wear in my caubeen,
But 'till that day I'll stick for aye to wearing of the green.

But if at last our color should be torn from Ireland's heart,
Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old soil will part;
I've heard whisper of a country that lies far beyant the say,
Where rich and poor stand equal, in the light of freedom's day.

Oh, Erin must we lave you, driven by the tyrant's hand,
Must we ask a mother's welcome from a strange but happy land?
Where the cruel cross of England's thraldom never shall be seen,
And where, in peace, we'll live and die, a-wearing of the green.

Lyrics: Dion Boucicault


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