The Fields of Athenry

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"The Fields of Athenry" is a folk song about the Great Irish Famine (1845-1849), composed in the 1970s by Inchicore songwriter Pete St. John and first recorded by Irish ballad singer Danny Doyle. It tells the story of the famine through first-person narrative, recounting the tale of a prisoner who has been sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, Australia, for stealing food to feed his starving family. 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]

1 Popular versions
2 Sporting anthem
3 In film
4 Lyrics And Explanation
5 References
6 See also
7 Other rugby match songs

[edit] Popular versions

The song has been recorded by many Irish artists such as Paddy Reilly, Frank Patterson, Ronan Tynan, Brush Shiels, James Galway, The Dubliners, Boston-based American group Dropkick Murphys, California punk band No Use For A Name, New Zealander's Hollie Smith and Steve McDonald, and by The Durutti Column. Serbian bands who recorded the song include Orthodox Celts and Tir na n'Og. It was also recorded by a Polish band called Carrantuohill.

A reggae version of this song was recorded by the Century Steel Band in the early 1990s. The Dropkick Murphys recorded a punk-rock version of this song on their 2003 album Blackout, as well as a softer version they 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.

[edit] Sporting anthem

The song has long been an anthem of Galway and Gaelic games supporters. It is also associated with Irish rugby union team Munster, the Ireland national rugby union team and the Republic of Ireland national football team, English rugby union team London Irish, and later on Scottish football team Celtic.

"The Fields of Anfield Road" is sung by Liverpool supporters to the same tune, but with suitably adapted lyrics referencing their history and stadium.^[4]

[edit] In film

The song is sung in the movie Veronica Guerin, by Brian O'Donnell, then aged 11, a street singer in Dublin. [1] It is also sung a cappella by a female character at a wake in the controversial 1994 movie Priest. It also appears in Dead Poets Society (an anachronism, as the the film is set in 1959) and 16 Years of Alcohol. An a capella version of the first verse and chorus can be found during a singing contest judged by Janeane Garofalo in the film The Matchmaker.

[edit] Lyrics And Explanation

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."^[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. 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.^{[citation needed]}

Trevelyan's corn: The term "corn" usually means wheat in Ireland. However, 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.^{[citation needed]}