Four Green Fields
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Four Green Fields is a 1967 folk song by Irish musician Tommy Makem, described in the New York Times as a "hallowed Irish leave-us-alone-with-our-beauty ballad."[1] Of Makem's many compositions, it has become the most familiar, and is part of the common repertoire of Irish folk musicians.[2]
The song tells of an old woman who had four green fields; and how strangers tried to take them from her; and how her sons died trying to defend them. Its middle stanza is a description of the violence and deprivation experienced by the Irish, including the people in Northern Ireland (part of the UK), though the British are not explicitly identified (nor Saxons, nor Danes). At the end of the song, one of her fields remains out of her hands:
- "But my sons have sons, as brave as were their fathers;
- My fourth green field will bloom once again," said she.
The song is interpreted as a parable of the British colonisation of Ireland and the current status of Northern Ireland. The four fields are the Provinces of Ireland with Ulster being the "field" that is still in British hands, the old woman a traditional personification of Ireland herself (see Kathleen Ni Houlihan).
Makem frequently described the song as having been inspired by a drive through the "no man's land" adjoining Northern Ireland, where he saw an old woman tending livestock. She was oblivious to the political boundaries that loomed so large in the public's eye; the land was older than the argument, and she didn't care what was shown on the map.
The song's penultimate line ("But my sons have sons, as brave as were their fathers") is often interpreted, sometimes critically, as support for militant Irish nationalist groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA). However, the song had been written prior to the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and decades after the Anglo Irish War and Irish Civil War. The song was (arguably) mirroring the romanticised view that many Northern Irish people had of militant republicanism at the time, and still do today. It also reflected the tension of daily life in the face of a military occupation, where one was advised, regardless of politics: "Whatever you say, say nothing", to quote a popular song in Makem's repertoire. On emigrating to the U.S., Makem was astonished to find a cordial relationship between the public and its police force, something he had not experienced in Armagh.[citation needed] This penultimate line is sometimes sung as, "But peace will come, my lands will be united".
Makem commonly sung the song as an encore.
