A mother’s love is a blessing

“A mother’s love is a blessing” is the refrain of a sad song Angela McCourt sings at a family gathering, turning maternal love into both a comfort and a warning: it is precious while a mother is present, and its absence will be felt when she is gone. Heard as Frank prepares to leave Ireland for America, the song gathers the book’s recurring departures into a compact, emotionally unsettled benediction.

The Song at a Family Gathering

After the Abbot finishes a song about an Irish boy who goes to America, is shot by gangsters, and dies before a priest can reach him, Uncle Pa calls it the saddest song he has ever heard and asks whether someone can sing something lively. Angela says she has no wind for it. Uncle Pa urges her to try, and the family joins her chorus: “A mother’s love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You’ll miss her when she’s gone.”

The song does not resolve the gathering’s sadness. Uncle Pa calls it worse than the previous one and worries that the evening is turning into a wake; he asks for a livelier song or says the sadness will drive him to drink. Its effect is thus double: a shared chorus gives the family a voice, yet the words deepen the mood of parting rather than dispel it.

A Refrain Set Against Departure

The refrain resonates with the family’s earlier departures. When Angela and her children leave New York, Grandma Sheehan sends money to Philomena Flynn and Delia Fortune, who buy tickets, find a steamer trunk at the St. Vincent de Paul Society, hire a van to take the family to the Manhattan pier, and put them aboard ship. Their goodbye is accompanied by a practical, unsentimental farewell. As the ship pulls away, Angela identifies the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for the children, then vomits over the side; the Atlantic wind blows it across the passengers admiring the view. The song’s later blessing makes separation sound tender, but the earlier crossing shows the bodily discomfort and abruptness that can accompany it.

The song also speaks across the distance created when Malachy leaves for work in England. Because America is at war, he agrees to go to a factory in Coventry after Christmas, while Frank is told he must be the man of the house. The family sees him off at the railway station, and the shopkeeper extends credit to Angela in expectation that money will come back. After a brief letter and a three-pound money order, the remittances stop. Angela returns to begging, while the children’s imagined riches—fish and chips, sweets, and Saturday films—give way to the repeated absence of money. In this context, the lyric’s promise of a mother’s lasting love stands beside a father’s departure and the material consequences of a separation that does not quickly end.

The Song Beside Frank’s Own Journey

By the time Frank plans to leave for America, the refrain has become more than a general statement about maternal affection. He has been working for Mrs. Finucane, and after her death he takes money, considers a Mass for her soul, and throws her ledger into the River Shannon. He then visits O’Riordan’s Travel Agency. Travel by air through London would cost a fortune; instead, the agent offers passage on the Irish Oak from Cork for fifty-five pounds, with nine days at sea and a cabin of his own. Frank says he has the money and tells Angela he will leave in a few weeks. She cries. Michael asks whether the family will all go someday.

The song’s instruction to keep a mother while she is present acquires a poignant edge in this scene: Frank’s departure is a step toward the imagined destination of America, but it also means leaving Angela behind. The narrative does not claim that the song causes or changes his decision. Rather, its placement makes the emotional cost of migration audible just as his passage becomes concrete—an actual ship, a named port, a fare, and a date only weeks away.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The refrain holds together affection and foreknowledge. Its first claim blesses a child wherever he travels; its next two lines insist that love cannot prevent absence or make it painless. That tension suits a family story in which movement is repeatedly driven by work, poverty, and the hope of a better life, while each journey places distance between relatives. Angela’s earlier voyage from New York, Malachy’s departure for Coventry, and Frank’s impending crossing to America are distinct journeys, but the song gives their separations a shared emotional language.

Its communal performance matters as much as its words. Angela initially says she lacks the wind to sing, then tries after Uncle Pa’s urging, and the family joins the chorus. The response does not turn sorrow into cheerfulness: Uncle Pa hears the song as another cause for a wake. The scene instead lets love and grief coexist in a family voice, making the blessing neither a guarantee of reunion nor a denial of loss, but a reminder of the bond that remains meaningful across departures.