Nearly fifty years ago Thomas D’Arcy McGee, an Irish-American poet, and at the time of his death a leading statesman of Canada, of wide fame and renowned memory, wrote of the Irish prairie farmer in Illinois as follows:
“’Tis ten long years since Eileen bawn
Adventured with her Irish boy
Across the seas and settled on
A prairie farm in Illinois.
“Sweet waves the sea of summer flowers
Around our wayside cot so coy,
Where Eileen sings away the hours
That light my task in Illinois.
Chorus—