We’ve been living in this townland

for a hundred years or more,

and my father’s in the churchyard

like his fathers gone before;

but there’s black rot on the praties,

and the bailiff’s at the door,

so the young men are all leaving

and we’ll see them never more.

 

Now there’s black rot on the praties,

and the bailiff’s at the door

for the countryside is starving,

so it’s harder to ignore

the incessant pangs of hunger,

and it won’t be long before

I’ll be lying with my fathers,

for the famine’s bite is sore,

 

There’s black rot on the praties

and the bailiff at the door

says by order of the landlord

we can’t live here anymore.

Then his men attack the stonework,

raze our cottage to the floor,

now we’ve nowhere left to turn to,

to survive an Gorta Mór.

 

an Gorta Mór. is Irish Gaelic for The Great Famine