Oh, the music in the air! An' the joy that's ivrywhere - Shure, the whole blue vault of heaven is wan grand triumphal arch, An' the earth below is gay Wid its tender green th'-day, Fur the whole world is Irish on the Seventeenth o' March!

Thomas Augustine Daly (1871–1947) was an American poet and journalist known for popular verse written in Irish-American dialect. These lines evoke the exuberant public atmosphere of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Irish immigrant communities used parades, music, and green decorations to assert ethnic pride and social presence. Daly’s poem participates in that cultural moment by presenting March 17 as a day when Irishness becomes temporarily universal—felt not only in city streets but in the very “vault of heaven” and the greening earth—turning a religious/saint’s feast into a broadly shared civic festival.

The speaker describes St. Patrick’s Day as a kind of total transformation of the world: music fills the air, joy is everywhere, and even the sky becomes a “triumphal arch,” a classical image of public celebration and victory. The dialect (“Shure,” “ivrywhere,” “wan”) is not merely decorative; it signals Irish-American identity and invites readers into a communal voice. The closing claim—“the whole world is Irish”—captures the holiday’s symbolic power: for one day, Irish culture is imagined as expansive and inclusive, turning local ethnic celebration into a universal mood of renewal, springtime greenness, and collective festivity.