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I AM OF IRISH AMERICA

I am of Irish America

I am a child of immigrants

I am of a people who for over eight hundred years

Have bent a knee to no king but the King of Heaven

And bowed a head to no queen but the Queen of Heaven.

I am of a dispersed people sent

In slavery to Barbados

In chains to Australia and

In famine to America

I am of a people who tore themselves from

Their father's trembling arms,

Kissed their tearstained mother's face good-bye and

Traveled all over the world

To keep a roof over beloved heads

And food on the hungry table.

I am of an empire upon which no sun can set, for

Wherever you go in this whole wide world,

Wherever a House of God has risen,

Wherever a house of learning founded

Or a tree of liberty planted by loving hands

And watered by the tears of an Irish exile,

There you will find the Irish empire.

I thank God for the blood of my Fathers.

I thank God for the land of my Birth.

I pray that God will save Ireland.

I pray that God will continue to Bless America

By Mary Holt Moore

Irish America

Across the ocean the generations came

Loved ones’ behind them, as they felt the pain.

Erin’s youth stood by the ships’ rails

Ireland behind, America hails.

All over the country the Irish went

To build a nation their backs they lent.

It was Irish hands that laid the rails

Their tired arms drove the nails.

And who can match Ireland’s son

The battles he fought, the medals he won!

There’s silver now in our parents’ hair

It was years of toil that put it there.

Three thousand miles from the Irish Sea

Their dreams realized in you and me.

A pledge, my parents, I give to thee

To love and honor our history.

James Walsh