The Wind That Shakes the Barley (song)

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The Wind that Shakes the Barley is an Irish ballad written by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836-1883), a Limerick-born poet and professor of English literature. Its title was borrowed for the Ken Loach film which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006.

[edit] Background

The song is written from the perspective of a doomed young Wexford rebel who is about to sacrifice his relationship with his loved one and plunge into the cauldron of violence associated with the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. The references to barley in the song derive from the fact that the rebels often carried barley oats in their pockets as provisions for when on the march. This gave rise to the post-rebellion phenomenon of barley growing and marking the "croppy-holes", mass unmarked graves which slain rebels were thrown into, symbolising the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule.

[edit] Lyrics

I sat within the valley green, I sat me with my true love

My sad heart strove the two between, the old love and the new love

The old for her, the new that made me think on Ireland dearly

While soft the wind blew down the glen and shook the golden barley

'Twas hard the woeful words to frame to break the ties that bound us

But harder still to bear the shame of foreign chains around us

And so I said, "The mountain glen I'll seek at morning early

And join the bold united men," while soft winds shake the barley

While sad I kissed away her tears, my fond arms round her flinging

A yeoman's shot burst on our ears from out the wildwood ringing

A bullet pierced my true love's side in life's young spring so early

And on my breast in blood she died while soft winds shook the barley

I bore her to some mountain stream, and many's the summer blossom

I placed with branches soft and green about her gore-stained bosom

I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse then rushed o'er vale and valley

My vengeance on the foe to wreak while soft wind shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse I've taken at Oulart Hollow

And laid my true love's clay cold corpse where I full soon may follow

As round her grave I wander drear, noon, night and morning early

With breaking heart when e'er I hear the wind that shakes the barley.

[edit] Cover Versions

The song has been covered by many artists including The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Dolores Keane, Dead Can Dance, Solas, The Clancy Brothers, Glow, Dick Gaughan, Lupercalia, Orthodox Celts, Amanda Palmer, Fire + Ice, The Irish Rovers, The Lonely Stranded Band

A poem by the same name was published by Katharine Tynan.