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"'The Fields of Athenry'" is a song about the Great Irish Famine (1845-1849), composed in the 1970s by Inchicore songwriter Pete St. John.

Contents

Content

Composition dispute

Popular versions

Lyrics

References

See also

Content

"The Fields of Athenry" is a folk song about the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1849. It tells the story of the famine through first-person narrative.
The song, which was first recorded by Irish ballad singer Danny Doyle, recounts the tale of a prisoner who has been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, Australia, for stealing food to feed his starving family.

Composition dispute

The claim has been made that the words originate from a broadsheet ballad published in the 1880s by Devlin in Dublin with a different tune; however Pete St. John has stated definitively that he wrote the words as well as the music, so the story of the 1880s broadsheet may be false. ^[1]

Popular versions

The song has been recorded by many Irish artists such as Paddy Reilly, Frank Patterson, Ronan Tynan, Brush Shiels, James Galway, and by Boston-based American group The Dropkick Murphys. Serbian bands who recorded the song include Orthodox Celts and Tir na n'Og.
The song is associated with Galway and Gaelic games supporters there. It has recently been associated with the Munster, London Irish and Irish rugby union teams and the football club Celtic F.C. (of Glasgow, Scotland) which has a strong association with Ireland. Loyalists have adapted the song, with the main line changed to "Low lie, the fields of Ballynafeigh". "The Fields of Anfield Road" is sung by Liverpool F.C. supporters to the same tune, but with suitably adapted lyrics referencing their history and stadium.
A reggae version of the song was also recorded by the Century Steel Band in the early 1990s. The Boston punk rock band Dropkick Murphys also recorded a punk-rock version of this song on their 2003 album Blackout, as well as a softer version recorded specially for the family of Sergeant Andrew Farrar, an American Marine killed in Iraq ^[2]. Blaggards blended the song with Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues in a medley called "Prison Love Songs" ^[3]. Second-generation Irish Londoners, Neck, also recorded a "psycho-ceilidh" version of the song. Other punk versions of the song have been recorded by the bands No Use for a Name, The Tossers, and the Broken O'Briens.
The song is sung in the movie ''Veronica Guerin'', by Brian O'Donnell, then aged 11, a street singer in Dublin. (The song is titled Bad News on the film's soundtrack.) [1] It is also sung ''a cappella'' by a female character at a wake in the controversial 1994 movie Priest.
It is the traditional anthem of the Liverpool Hospitalite of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Lyrics

The Fields of Athenry — from the website of the composer.
Supporters of Irish Republicanism sometimes sing the song with the lyrics "Where once we watched the small free birds fly - oh baby, let the free birds fly / Our love was on the wing - Sinn Féin / We had dreams and songs to sing - IRA / It's so lonely round the Fields of Athenry."^[4][5]
''Trevelyan'' in the lyrics refers to Charles Edward Trevelyan, a senior British civil servant in the administration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin Castle, who saw the Famine in classic Malthusian theory as a natural means of 'controlling excessive population'. Trevelyan is widely blamed for the inadequacy of the British Government's response. His reports to London underestimated the severity of the Famine and overestimated the problems that could arise in providing assistance to the starving.
''Trevelyan's corn'': According to Paddy Reilly being interviewed on RTE radio, this was a reference to maize imported from America into Ireland for famine relief. A quantity was stolen from storage in Cork. The Irish were unfamiliar with the grain. As it was meant for seed, it proved too hard to mill for flour and was used mostly in gruel.
''Botany Bay'' refers to the Botany Bay penal colony in Australia.

Lyrics

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young girl calling "Michael, they have taken you away For you stole Trevelyan's corn So the young might see the morn' Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay" Low lie the fields of Athenry Where once we watched the small free birds fly Our love was on the wing We had dreams and songs to sing It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young man calling "Nothing matters, Mary, when you're free Against the famine and the crown I rebelled, they ran me down Now you must raise our child with dignity" Low lie the fields of Athenry Where once we watched the small free birds fly Our love was on the wing We had dreams and songs to sing It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry By a lonely harbour wall, she watched the last star falling As the prison ship sailed out against the sky For she'll live in hope and pray for her love in Botany Bay It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry Low lie the fields of Athenry Where once we watched the small free birds fly Our love was on the wing We had dreams and songs to sing It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

You can hear it at http://www.patricksarsfieldcsc.com/downloads/fields_of_athenry.mp3

References

1. http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/fields-athenry.html
2. Drop Kick Murphy's discography - The Fields of Athenry, Farrar version
3. Review of Blaggards' "Standards"
4. http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=68913&pt=n
5. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20060108/ai_n15993243

See also

★ Amhrán na bhFiann

★ List of Irish ballads

★ Northern Ireland

★ Republic of Ireland