Boys from Tralee

We came across the ocean for the price of the passage Came across the ocean for one English pound
We slept in the hay bed with the sheep and the shit
We slept in the hay, me and three boys from our town
Hunger did surround us
Came on like a black sea
Everything it came for, rotten on the ground Food was had for money
And as we had none
All the world around us came a tumbling down
Four boys from Tralee
Going to a factory
In a place a foreign man called Ontario Four boys from Tralee
Forty days out on the sea
Without home or family
Nowhere left to go
One morning our boy Tommy lay dying beside me
Cold and sick and dying and blue was what we found Before he took his last breath the ships sailors found him Before he took his last breath they tossed him in to drown
If hunger makes you nothing, then boy I am nothing
Just another hungry boy washed up on the sand
The lucky boys who did survive the cruel deeds of cruel men Would live a short and lonely life in a foreign land
Four boys from Tralee
Going to a factory
In a place a foreign man called Ontario Four boys from Tralee
Forty days out on the seas
One of them four boys was me
I wanted you to know