Written by: Mary Holt Moore
I am of Irish America
I am a child of immigrants
I am of a people who for over eight hundred years
Have bent a knee to no king but the King of Heaven
And bowed a head to no queen but the Queen of Heaven.
I am of a dispersed people sent
In slavery to Barbados
In chains to Australia and
In famine to America
I am of a people who tore themselves from
Their father’s trembling arms,
Kissed their tearstained mother’s face good-bye and
Traveled all over the world
To keep a roof over beloved heads
And food on the hungry table.
I am of an empire upon which no sun can set, for
Wherever you go in this whole wide world,
Wherever a House of God has risen,
Wherever a house of learning founded
Or a tree of liberty planted by loving hands
And watered by the tears of an Irish exile,
There you will find the Irish empire.
I thank God for the blood of my Fathers.
I thank God for the land of my Birth.
I pray that God will save Ireland.
I pray that God will continue to Bless America