Clann Lir - My Son In Americay

My son in Americay

A long time ago in the county Mayo, this story it first began
Before emigration was finally cured by the First Economical Plan
A brave young man had to leave his home and sail all over the sea
But he got well paid in the building trade at the shores of Americay

He got on very well but he sent nothing home and his mother began to think
That may be he'd run away with a blonde or spent all his money on drink!
She wrote him a letter and folded it up and sent it straight away
And on the cover she carefully wrote "To me son in Americay!"

And the postman collected this letter she wrote and he drove in his van to Cork
And he placed it on board on the ship at Cobh that landed it in New York
Sure there was the whiskey and everything else - the mailbags lay on the quay
And among the rest was this letter addressed "To my son in Americay"

And American postmen, I needn't relate, they are rather like me and you
And when at last to this letter they came, sure they didn't know what to do
Well they looked up all the official lists, they had nothing to say
There was no directory could help them to find her son in Americay!


So it laid at the office for years and years and it made all the boys a laugh
Until one day it found some use - in the training of the staff
And to every new postman that came on the job it was shown as Example Three
That was "Insufficiently addressed to 'Me Son in Americay'"!

But the son he got older and wiser too and one day to himself he said
"How are things going with me mother at home, is she alive or dead?"
He walked 'round the blocks to the GPO, there he stood with his cap in his hand
"Well be any chance would there be a letter for me from me Mother in Ireland?"

"Oh Yes! Kind sir - and here it is - we've been waiting for you for years!
We knew that someday someone would come from Cork or even Donegal
For two hundred million that are living now in the whole of the USA
For mother in Ireland that carefully wrote to the 'Son in Americay'

Текст этой песнн приписывается Альфу Мак Лохлину, бывшему одно время директором Государственной национальной библиотеки в Дублине. Он, безусловно, знал, как подписывать конверты. Мелодия же - гораздo более древняя. На эту же мелодию исполняются и некоторые другие ирландские песни. Например, патриотическая The Valley of Knockanure.

Герой песни оставил в Ирландии престарелую мать и уехал на заработки в Америку. Через несколько лет обеспокоенная мама направила ему письмо, написав на конверте: «Моему сыну в Америку», письмо нашло адресата в Нью-Йорке только потому, что он пришел на почтамт и спросил, не приходило ли ему письмо «от мамы из Ирландии».

Ситуация вполне понятная нам, если вспомнить о трудной судьбе подмастерья Ваньки Жукова, писавшего из города «на деревню дедушке». Все это еше раз доказывает душевную близость между русскими и ирландцами, в чем ни один из участников Clann Lir не сомневается уже много лет.