Four tiny boys
and five little girls
Could I have become more impoverished?
We eat this junk
It doesn't pay
Potatoes all day

Sing Catholic hymns
And not go to Hell
Growing potatoes and pigs to sell
Out on our plot it's all that we grow
We don't complain about our raggy clothes

Life's a potato ploy
We hope for some later joy
Or a little more by way of girth
We have a tiny place, hoping for Britain's grace
But then a blight has struck our earth...

Three years from now
There's no one at home
Britain had left us to die alone
Had no defence for this disease
Potatoes were all clones genetically

And all of my friends
Decided to go
Life here had hit an all-time low
I went along
The ships full of crowds
Looks like there's still illness going round...

What measures to employ?
Just hope for later joy
And for an answer to our prayer
So we've been sailing far
Off to America
Maybe they'll know what we're worth

So the Brits had let us down
You stayed too long out of town
You were too slow to defend
And you've never been our friend
Laws had made it hard to see
What more hope left there could be
Not much more could we abide
Couldn't just stay there to die

I took my boys
And I took my girls
We couldn't become more impoverished
We left our home
And went with the herd
And then fled to the New World

So long potato ploy
Still hope for later joy
Off to America we will go
I'll sail across the sea
Hope to see Liberty
And not the curse on all I grow...