Hola amigos: Today I want to share a beautiful Irish song I heard on public television: “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” by Brendan Graham, and performed by Celtic Thunder who continues to explore their Irish and Celtic roots in  Voyage. It tells the story of an Irish immigrant, Annie Moore, the first to pass through the Ellis Island facility in New York Harbor.

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If you want to listen to them and watch the video go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WtTVtILUAU&playnext=1&list=PL26E17B2706853996&feature=results_main

Anna “Annie” Moore arrived from County Cork, Ireland aboard the steamship Nevada on January 1, 1892. At the time it was reported that her arrival was on her 15th birthday.

She is honored by Ellis Island Immigration Museum and in Cobh, the Irish seaport from where she sailed to the United States of America. Her story is told in the song  ”Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” written by Brendan Graham and Ronan Tynan, who was a member of The Irish Tenors.  ES

“Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears”

by Brendan Graham and Ronan Tynan

On the first day of January,
Eighteen ninety-two,
They opened Ellis Island and they let
The people through.
And first to cross the threshold
Of that isle of hope and tears,
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years.

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it’s not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you’ll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

In a little bag she carried
All her past and history,
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty.
And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
But there’s no future in the past
When you’re fifteen years

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it’s not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you’ll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

When they closed down Ellis Island
In nineteen forty-three,
Seventeen million people
Had come there for sanctuary.
And in springtime when I came here
And I stepped onto it’s piers,
I thought of how it must have been
When you’re fifteen years.

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it’s not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you’ll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind.
The isle of home is always on your mind.

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