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Attention pay, my countrymen, and hear my native news,
Although my song is sorrowful I hope you'll me excuse;
I left my native country a foreign land to see,
I bid farewell to Donegal, likewise to Glenswilly.
T'was on a summer's morning by the dawning of the day,
I left my peaceful happy home to wander far away;
And as I viewed that grand old man, perhaps no more to see,
I thought my heart would surely break in leaving Glenswilly.
No more among the sycamore I'll hear the blackbird sing,
No more I'll hear the blithe cuckoo that welcomes back the spring;
No more I'll plow your fertile fields, a chuisle geal mo chroidhe,
On a foreign soil I'm doomed to toil far away from Glenswilly.
God bless you, dark old Donegal, my own, my native land,
In dreams I'll see your heather glens and towering mountains grand;
God bless the day, 'twill ere come 'round, when I'll return to thee,
And live as my forefathers lived and die in Glenswilly.
Based on a poem, An Emigrant's Farewell, which Mick McGinley wrote in 1883, on board the Invercargill bound for New Zealand, and also the subject of a 1997 New Zealand documentary, Erin's Exiled Daughters.
This variant arranged and recorded by Ryan's Fancy (Songs From The Shows, trk#10, ©2001, Avondale Music, St. John's, NL).
Liner Notes: Vocal — Denis Ryan.
"There are versions of this song to be found in the repertoires of traditional performers in all of the Atlantic Provinces. Heritage was the theme for the show in which this version was performed."
See more songs by Ryan's Fancy.
A chuisle geal mo chroidhe — O bright pulse of my heart.
