Irish Toasts

Many of the toasts that are ascribed as being Irish toasts are not strictly Irish. There are certain toasts that have survived intact in Ireland to the present day even though they were common amongst all English speaking peoples at one time but this survival doesn't make the toast an Irish toast. If you are looking for toasts in Gaelic, I have a separate page setup here.

Here are what I consider to be some distinctively Irish toasts.

Here's to the land of the shamrock so green,
Here's to each lad and his darling colleen,
Here's to the ones we love dearest and most —
And may God save old Ireland! That's an Irishman's toast.

An Irishman, may he always eat his potatoes without peel.

[Check if this is a pun on Peel (the Orangeman?)]

Here's to Mavoureen and Erin-go-bragh!
The Dutch make the beer, but I keep up the law.
The Germans are all right in war and in peace,
But, b'gorry! it takes the Irish to make good police.

May the smiles of women cheer Irish lads so clever
That they in whiskey drink to beauty's queens for ever.

" Cead mille failte," they'll give you down at Donovan's,
As cheery as the spring-time, and Irish as the Canavaun.
The wish of my heart is if ever I had one
That every luck in life may linger with the Donovan.

We've heard her faults a hundred times,
The new ones and the old,
In songs and sermons, ranns and rhymes

When Erin first rose from the dark it was good;

The em'rald of Europe, it sparkled and shone —
In the ring of the world the most precious stone.

In her sun, in her soil, in her station thrice blest,
With her back towards Britain, her face to the West,

Erin stands proudly insular on her steep shore,
And strikes her high harp 'mid the ocean's deep roar.

Here is to old Ireland, her sons and her daughters;
Here is to her emblem, the Shamrock, I mean.
May the sun always shine on the round towers of Erin.
That's a toast from the heart of an Irish colleen.

Irish whiskey: the genuine mountain dew.

Hibernia — Steeped in her own tears
she never can get up; — soaking
in whiskey, she must go down; —
but bathing in " coult wather " she
will get on " swimmingly."

God shield you, champions of the Gael,
Never may your foes prevail,
Never were ye known to yield
Basely in the embattled field.

Hibernia — Steeped in her own tears
she never can get up; —
soaking in whiskey, she must go down; —
but bathing in "coult wather" she
will get on "swimmingly."

Irish Shillelaghs: may they never break the head of a friend.

Let all atone

Let all unite
For Ireland's right
And drown our griefs in Freedom's song.

May the Emerald Isle ever bloom in the main,
and only be trodden by the foot of friendship.

May the Emerald Isle that grows out of the sea
Flourish long in Prosperity, happy and free.

All hail fairest land in Neptune's old ocean!
Thou land of St. Patrick, my Ireland agra!
Cold, — cold must the heart be, and void of emotion
That loves not the music of Erin go bragh!

Here is to old Ireland, her sons and her daughters.