Contemporary: Fields of Athenry
Fields of Athenry
by pub 1985 Waltons Publishing Ltd
First verse and chorus: href="fields-athenry-x.mp3" target="_blank">MP3 (429
K)
Fields of Athenry is performed by Anderson
on her album, Seven Songs
Sheet music
| ABC tune file | Midi
tune
Notes: Excerpt from an article that appeared in The
Glasgow Herald for 10 April 1996:
"The song was written in 1979 and recorded by
Paddy Reilly, whose best-selling single launched an album of the same name.
However, over the past 17 years more than 400 cover versions have been made
with
conservative estimates on single sales put at five million. The song was
based
on a true story of the fate of one young couple during the Irish famine.
"The song tells the story of Lord Trevelyan who
brought a supply of corn back from America in a bid to battle starvation
during
the potato famine in the mid-nineteenth century. Unfortunately it was Indian
corn, too hard to be milled, so useless. However, local people thought it
would
save them and so broke into the stores, were arrested, and subsequently
deported
to Australia.
"The song could be about anyone Scots,
Irish, English. It is about poor innocent people and how they are victims of
natural disasters. It's easy to say why it's been so popular in Glasgow
because
in 1846, the year the song's set, over 150,000 Irishmen, women, and children
fled to the city where many were treated with generosity. But I've heard the
song sung everywhere from San Francisco to Melbourne."
To learn about the Great Famine,
Wikipedia is a good starting point.
An internet myth diffused
In June 1996 someone named Mike Parker posted a note to the Harp Digest
mailing
list (is the thread) that asserted that this song was based on an 1888
broadsheet
ballad published in Dublin. From this one posting on one mailing list, the
assertion spread as a copy-paste virus across the web until it became a
footnote
to almost every instance of the lyrics for The Fields of Athenry found on
the
Web. In 2000, folklorist and researcher John Moulden questioned the
accuracy of this assertion. He contacted Mike Parker for more information
and also went to Dublin to research the broadsheet histories and found no
evidence to support the existence of said broadsheet.
can read the DT Forum thread with his research results (see his first post
on 11 March 00).
Unfortunately, the horse was already out of the barn, and we too had added
the unconfirmed information as notes to this page, as did a few others, and
so
on and so on, a la urban legend. It's been perpetuated for years,
weakening Pete St. John's claim on a song that he unequivocally states he
wrote
from scratch. That should not have happened based on a list-serv post with
no substantiation. We extend our apologies to
so long. Credit certainly belongs to him for a song that has become
an ubiquitous part of the tradition. -Kate
The Fields of Athenry
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."
Chorus:Low lie the fields of AthenryWhere once we watched the small free
birds flyOur love was on the wingWe had dreams and songs to singIt'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 freeAgainst the famine and the crown,I rebelled, they cut me
down.Now you must raise our child with dignity."
By a lonely harbor wall, she watched the last star fallAs the prison ship
sailed out against the skyFor she lived to hope and pray for her love in
Botany BayIt's so lonely round the fields of Athenry.