When Irish eyes are smiling, sure 'tis like a morn in spring. In the lilt of Irish laughter you can hear the angels sing, When Irish hearts are happy all the world seems bright and gay, And when Irish eyes are smiling, sure, they steal your heart away.

These lines are the refrain from the popular Irish-American song “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” closely associated with tenor and stage star Chauncey Olcott, who helped popularize it in the early 1910s. The lyric was written by George Graff Jr. (with additional credit often given to Ernest R. Ball), and the song circulated widely in vaudeville and musical-theatre settings before becoming a staple of Irish-themed performance and later St. Patrick’s Day repertoire. Its sentimental celebration of Irish charm and good humor reflects the period’s commercial “stage Irish” imagery, shaped for American audiences and the Irish diaspora’s nostalgia.

The refrain idealizes Irish identity through a chain of bright, pastoral metaphors: smiling eyes are “like a morn in spring,” laughter carries an almost sacred music, and happiness transforms the whole world into something “bright and gay.” The final line—smiles that “steal your heart away”—frames Irish warmth as both irresistible and disarming, turning ethnic character into romantic allure. Read historically, the lyric exemplifies early-20th-century popular culture’s tendency to package national identity as a set of emotional traits (cheerfulness, musicality, tenderness), offering comfort and belonging to immigrant audiences while also flattening complexity into a marketable stereotype.