The song goes:
If you’re Irish come into the parlour,
There’s a welcome there for you;
If your name is Timothy or Pat,
So long as you come from Ireland,
There’s a welcome on the mat,
If You come from the Mountains of Mourne,
Or Killarney’s lakes so blue,
We’ll sing you a song and we’ll make a fuss,
Whoever you are you are one of us,
If you’re Irish, this is the place for you!
If all of the 70 million people around the world who consider themselves Irish or of Irish ancestry arrived at our door, we would need one hell of a big Parlour!
Many of us outside Ireland with Irish ancestry are just mutts… Irish mixed with other ancestral lines.
That is one claim I cannot make, even the surnames are the same on both sides.
There’s lots of folks out there happy to have a wee bit o’ Irish in them.
There sure are, Nancy, there sure are! 😆
It’s really funny how many of us do go back several generations just trying to identify any Irish ancestors for just one day. When I was a young girl in school I would certainly do this. To my knowledge I only have one small Irish branch on the old family tree, and I have to go to my Grandfather’s Grandmother–so that’s great-great grandmother? to get to Ireland. But every March 17th I’d claim heritage to Katie Radcliffe! That’s a very “wee” bit of Irish. I like to think we’re all one big family anyway. LOL!
We are all part of one great big melting pot, or should be!