my heart calls from across the sea...

oh to step foot once again on Celtic lands.

och bheith ceim coise aris eile ar Ceilteach thailte.

"The roll of the wind. As we sail across the water. The roll of the sea. As we're taken through the night. The dimming lamp of day. Leaves the crimson foam and spray. Across the face of the mighty Atlantic. In this cradle we found love. In our lifetimes we were broken. By the spirit we were turned. Here we touched the hope divine. And in the rapture and the charm. Came the tranquil and the calm. On the rage of the mighty Atlantic." -The Mighty Atlantic by Runrig

"On Lough Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays, When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days In the wave beneath him shining; Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, Catch a glimpse of the days that are over; Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time For the long faded glories they cover."-Thomas Moore

"We Irish pride ourselves as patriots and tell the beadroll of the valiant ones since Clontarf's sunset saw the Norsemen broken...Aye, and before that too we had our heroes but they were might fighters and victorious. The later men got nothing save defeat, hard transatlantic sidewalks or the scaffold...We Irish, vainer than tense Lucifer, are yet content with half-a-dozen turf, and cry our adoration for a bog, rejoicing in the rain that never ceases, and happy to stride over the sterile acres, or stony hills that scarcely feed a sheep. But we are fools, I say, are ignorant fools to waste the spirit's warmth in this cold air, to spend our wit and love and poetry on half-a-dozen peat and a black bog. We are not native here or anywhere. We were the keltic wave that broke over Europe, and ran up this bleak beach among these stones: but when the tide ebbed, were left stranded here in crevices, and ledge-protected pools that have grown salter with the drying up of the great common flow that kept us sweet with fresh cold draughts from deep down in the ocean. So we are bitter, and are dying out in terrible harshness in this lonely place, and what we think is love for usual rock, or old affection for our customary ledge, is but forgotten longing for the sea that cries far out and calls us to partake in his great tidal movements round the earth." -John Hewitt
"Air sgiath a' seoladh nan neoil. 'S an domhain liath. Mar dhealbh a' tighinn beo tro na sgothan. 'S mi a' tilleadh gu tir. Alba nam beanntan ard. Nan acraichean lom. Thairis air na lochan mointich. Nan coilltean 's nan gleann. Alba.

This flight is sailing through the clouds. And the blue heavens. The homeland appears like a developing photograph. Through the mists as I return to land. I see Scotland of the high mountains. And the empty acres. Flying low across the moorland lochs. The forests and the glens. Scotland."-Alba by Runrig

"Icham of Irlaunde. Ant of the holy londe of irlande. Gode sir pray ich ye. For of saynte charite. Come ant daunce wyt me in irlaunde.

I am of Ireland. Out of the holy land of Ireland. I pray you good sir. For the sake of holy charity. Come and dance with me in Ireland." -14th Century anonymous