Come Home To Tír Na Nóg

My mom died recently. So this is a song for an audience of one - my mom. She was as Irish as a daughter of Irish immigrants could be, and we grew up internalizing that to a large degree. I think she would have liked it. For those of you unfamiliar, there are just a few Irish Gaelic words in the song. Tír Na Nóg was the world after death to the pre-Christian Irish, and it still has a cultural meaning, if not a spiritual one. 'Mavourneen' is a term of endearment usually translated as 'my darling' but it is used in more than a romantic context. It's more like 'dear one' in usage in my experience. And 'keens' were the songs written and sung by bards to lament the death of loved ones. 'Keening' also meant the natural expression of grief (crying, wailing, hyperventilating). Until the early 1900's, when more 'formal' keens were banned by the Catholic Church, they were part of Irish funerals, and often were songs that existed for centuries as part of Irish funeral rituals. Many Irish continue to have keens sung at funerals. The wind whispers through the barley beneath a rising moon Waves kiss the emerald shore to a distant piper’s tune It’s evening over Ireland but here it’s barely noon. And my mother has departed from the world. Her father was an Antrim lad, her mom a Limerick lass. Sailed to far America with just the garments on their backs In the 1920s came four children: Mary, Nora, Jack And my mother Betty, the youngest girl Chorus Beyond this life, and beyond death, lies Tír Na Nóg Where sunlight shines forever on the valleys and the loughs Where the grass is ever green; the trees are never bare. Come home to Tír Na Nóg, all the clan is gathered there. In Tír Na Nóg there is no illness, suffering or pain. Nor poverty nor famine, nor struggles that remain. The harp is by the hearthside, all the songs are sung again. The voices once again are clear and strong. Come home to Tír Na Nóg, Mavourneen, Mavourneen The feast is on the table, fit for kings and queens All grief and sadness banished, the bards sing no more keens Raise a glass and lift your voice in song.