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Erin Grá Mo Chroí

Joe Heaney sang Erin Grá mo Chroí (Ireland, Love of My Heart) to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger at their home in Beckenham in 1964. This recording was included in 2000 on his Topic anthology The Road From Connemara.

Gay Woods sang Erin Grá Mo Chroí on Steeleye Span’s 1998 album Horkstow Grange. She noted:

My brother Terry Corcoran taught me this song—he spent many years in the U.S.A. I then saw a TV thing on the lives of Irish women emigrants to America and how they navigated their lives when they reached there. Their loneliness for their families, sisters and mothers inspired me to sing this song from the feminist viewpoint.

Lyrics

Steeleye Span sing Erin Grá Mo Chroí

At the setting of the sun
When my long day’s work was done,
I went out along the sea shore for a walk -
And I being all alone,
I sat down upon a stone
To gaze upon the streets of New York

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Erin grá mo chroí
You’re the dear old land to me
You’re the fairest that my eyes have ever seen
And if ever I go home
From you I never will roam
From my own dear native land—far away

With the turf fire burning bright
On a cold dark winter’s night
And the snow flakes falling gently to the ground -
When St. Patrick’s day comes ’round
We’ll wear the shamrock green
In my own dear native land—far away

Well it broke my mother’s heart
From her I had to part
Will I ever see my mother any more?
When her body it is laid
In the cold and silent grave
In my own dear native land—far away