Текст песни
Oh son, you ask why I weep and mourn
Why the hunger still burns though the pretties are gone
Come sit by the ashes, I'll tell you the truth
How the blight took the harvest and the landlord took the roof
In '45 the leaves turned black before Lammas came
The stalks fell soft in the field like a child that's lost its name
We ate the nettles, we ate the weeds, we ate the grass by the stile
Your baby sister grew cold in my arms
Though I rocked her all the while
The agent came with a battering ram, the crowbar men in red
They threw our table on the road and the cat lay crushed and dead
Oh father dear, why did we leave old Skibbereen?
The green hills lie empty and the hunger still screams
From Queenstown pier to the coffin ship's hold
Twenty stone down to seven, God help the Irish soul!
Six weeks we lay in the dark between decks
The fever took your brother and the typhus took the rest
I held you wrapped in my shawl though the water reached my knee
And whispered "America" like a prayer across the sea
They tipped the dead at sunrise, small bundles to the deep
No priest, no prayer, no coffin, only the Atlantic's keep
I curse the day I left the land where my father sleeps so sound
I curse the hunger, curse the crown, curse the blight upon the ground
But most I curse the silence now when I walk these foreign streets
For every face I meet is fed while my heart still never eats
Oh father dear, I oft times hear you weep in the night
For the ruined homes of Skibbereen and the graves without a light
We crossed the storm for a promise that turned to dust and pain
God save Ireland mo stōr for we'll not see home again
Only the slow home again