BlackForties©2022TonyFallon119

 BlackForties©2022TonyFallon119

In the dark eighteen forties Ireland was England's breadbasket

That time dead thrown in mass graves without a coffin or casket

While ships sailed outward loaded with fresh meat and Irish grown grain

While sons of the landlord were educated in France or Spain

It was not the failing potatoes brought the ruination

But the result of land taken from natives pre plantation

Overworked fields never could provide an adequate harvest

So food was often scarce in winter when weather was harshest

The potatoes rotting in the ground meant certain starvation

Meanwhile clergy preached after hardship there would be salvation

With the passing centuries holdings got smaller and smaller

Indoor animals then added to the unhealthy squalor

Little old mud cabins built into ditches with roofs of straw

Through which in the springtime the left over ice did slowly thaw

Those behind on rent were evicted by lackeys of the squire

Cattle were more profitable, so the house was set on fire

Thrown out on the cold open windy road to face certain doom

No money in the pockets to buy groceries to consume

Families walking the roads children's bare feet covered in dirt

Crying from fatigue and thirst hanging on to their mother's skirt

Reduced to begging for a few pennies from heartless bosses

To die in fields and ditches without benefit of crosses

The living trying to get overseas with their last few pounds

Leaving their families and loved ones in villages and towns

Immigrants boarded old rotting ships which very well might wreck

Long before they safely reached the ports of Boston or Quebec

Four weeks on the rolling ocean without nurse or physician

With no treatments to lessen seasickness or malnutrition

Corpses were thrown overboard without any slowing motion

To become food for trailing sharks in the Atlantic Ocean

Hoping for a living wage and to somehow make their fortunes

And live a long life so their children did not grow up orphans

Then be treated like they were just a criminal or a spy

With big signs in the windows saying "No Irish Need Apply"