The Great Saint Lawrence River Songtext
von Declan O’Rourke

In the crowded port of Dublin town
The bedraggled hordes are gathering
Seeking passage to a new world home
Leaving all they′ve ever loved and known
To escape or die from tyranny

The first stop they'll make is Liverpool
In the cellars there below the streets
Down among the vermin and disease
Some hide out until their ships can leave
Lest they be deported back again

This year, America has closed its doors to them
So they race for Canada before the ice closes the Saint Lawrence

Now the crossing is so treacherous
With so many crammed into the hold
The conditions are most suitable
To the passing of the sickness, ohh
All along the way, they′re dying, ohh


And after weeks upon an icy swell
Those with strength to see the river still
Are now witness, in the dead of night
To a strange macabre spectacle
Bloated bodies drifting out to sea

And anchored up at Grosse-Île, Canada
40 vessels line the Saint Lawrence
At the station there for quarantine
The sheer magnitude of suffering
Is beyond the helpless volunteers

In their thousands, they will perish there
Despite all efforts to contain the spread
Of the rampant typhus fever
It's like wildfire of the river, ohh, Toronto is on high alert

And Saint John is filled with swarms of them
Half-starved wretches begging in the streets
Mothers and their children in the snow
With no shoes or stocking on their feet
They are more like ghosts than living things
They are more like ghosts than living things