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All For The Sailing Tomorrow (feat. Carol Keogh)

from Old Ghosts In The Water by SJ McArdle

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about

Drogheda was one of Ireland’s largest ports of emigration during the Great Hunger of the 1840’s, and desperate, starving folk travelled from every province to forge an escape to Liverpool.
“Like brooks that grow from many mountain rills/The peasant-stream flowed out from Irish vales” – John Boyle O’Reilly

lyrics

I see rats in the water and crows on the quay
And mothers with stones where their hearts used to be
I see children so skinny they ought to blow down
All for the sailing tomorrow

And the dead have moved in like a wave of the sea
Like a plague or a tempest or a swarm of old fleas
And they crowd on the quays and are like to fall in
All for the sailing tomorrow

And the shippers are raking the coin from the hands
Of the peasant-stream flowing from the vales of the land
There’s a waving of hankies and hats on the shore
You’ll never see your loved ones more
Brothers and sisters and lovers and friends
Running madly along with the ship on the strand
It’s a daily occurrence so horrid and cruel
From Drogheda Port to Liverpool

And the lucky ones root with the cattle and pigs
Oh the youngsters of Connacht have seen nothing so big
As a port town so heaving with humanity
All for the sailing tomorrow

And the shippers are raking the coin from the hands
Of the peasant-stream flowing from the vales of the land
There’s a waving of hankies and hats on the shore
You’ll never see your loved ones more
Brothers and sisters and lovers and friends
Running madly along with the ship on the strand
It’s a daily occurrence so horrid and cruel
From Drogheda Port to Liverpool

Are you turning your face out of mercy or shame?
Or a sense of injustice, or is it all the same?
One way or the other, we all must report
All for the sailing tomorrow

credits

from Old Ghosts In The Water, released July 1, 2022
Written by SJ McArdle/Eugene Donegan

Carol – lead vocal
SJ – harmony vocal, acoustic guitar, harmonica
John – harmony vocal
Trevor – double bass
Graham – dulcimer, piano, harmonium, Hammond organ, ghost bell, string arrangement

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about

SJ McArdle image

SJ McArdle Drogheda, Ireland

SJ McArdle is an Irish songwriter and musician who has toured internationally, had several songs in movies and has released four solo albums.

He is known in part for his former work with Kern and with Long Woman's Grave with Nuala Kennedy & Trevor Hutchinson.

“Bravo for an artist who has taken contemporary Irish music to parts it far too seldom reaches” – Hot Press

Artist photos: Brian Connolly ... more

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