Happy 80th Birthday...

to the best Man I know:

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
Or see the sun go down on Galway Bay.

Just to hear again the ripple of a trout stream...
The women in the meadows making hay
Ah, to sit beside a turf fire in a cabin
And watch the barefoot gossoons 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 ways
They scorned 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.
Then I pray my God will let me make my heaven...
In that dear land across the Irish Sea.