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Farewell my wife and children dear
While life did last I loved you dear
My love for you will still remain
And I hope in Heaven we'll meet again.!
This is the time where family plOIS become standard burial practice, in itself suggestive
of ultimate reunion:
"Oh bury me where my mother's prayer
And my sister's tears shall mingle there,
By my father's grave my grave shall be,
Oh bury me not in the deep deep sea. 2
"Heaven," in the name of affection, is national if not domestic:
And if there's ever going to be a life hereafter,
and someone assures me there's going be,
I will ask my God to let me make my heaven
In Ihal fair land across the Irish sea.
In a [...] prison where an Irish soldier lay
By his side a priest was standing ere his soul should pass away,
And he faintly rnunnured "father" as he clasped him by the hand
Tell me this before I die, "shall my soul pass through Ireland?"3
Present day Newfoundland interior decoration offers various evidence of the affective
significance of "home" and "family:"4 photographs of children's achievements, from
primary school graduation to marriage, kitchen plates and plaques celebrating "mOlher,"
The one who bears the sweetest name
And adds a luster to the same
Long life to her for there's no other
em take the place of my dear mother. s
(illustrated with a rose)
and the innumerable gifts and souvenirs received from children and grandchildren, proudly
displayed and presented to visitors, are enough testimonies "erected" to the "immortality"
of family love. At the same time, the constant evocation of happy reunion in heaven and
the treasured memory of the past evoked in sentimental song sublimate the dread of
leasey 306.
2Pe:lcock, Songs 1: lSi.
3MUNFLA 87·159/CI0648.
4Sec Dale.
5From personal fieldnoles.