Galways Bay - 1947

James Pitt-Payne and Ian Cousins

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland
Then maybe at the closing of your day,
You will sit and watch
the moon rise over Claddagh,
And see the sun go down on Galway Bay.
Just to hear again
the ripple of the trout stream,
The women in the meadows making hay,
And to sit beside a turf fire in the cabin,
And watch the bare foot Goosens
at their play,

For the breezes blowing
o'er the seas from Ireland,
Are perfumed by the heather as they blow,
And the women in the uplands diggin' praties,
Speak a language
that the strangers do not know.
For the strangers came
and tried to teach us their way,
They scorn'd us just for being what we are,
But they might as well go
chasing after moonbeams,
Or light a penny candle from a star.

And if there is going to be a life hereafter,
And somehow I am sure there's going to be,
I will ask my God to let me make my heaven,
In that dear land across the Irish sea.

Soft karaoke
Words
synth str 1 treble
synth str 1 bass
synth str 1 mid range
fr hrn
Lyric Line
brass
pizz str
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Galway Bay 1947
by Dr. Arthur Coleman
copyright 1947 by Box and Cox (Publications) London
sequence by Dr. Pitt-Payne in London UK
and Ian Cousins, Australia Opera
completed on Wednesday 12 Dec 2001 at 14.30
in association with Doug Grierson
*