Dear Old Ireland

An emigrant toast from the backwoods — “We’ll toast old Ireland, dear old Ireland, Ireland, boys, hurrah!” — by the Irish nationalist poet and politician T.D. Sullivan (1827–1914), also the author of “God Save Ireland,” and published in his collected songs; it’s sometimes titled “Song from the Backwoods.” Versions were later collected in New England tradition (Flanders Collection), and it stays in the ballad-group repertoire.