Author: DJ Frank

 

Often mistaken as a folk song, The Fields of Athenry was actually written by Dublin songwriter Pete St John in the mid 1970s. It is set during the Great Famine which devestated Ireland in the 1840s and it is about a family whose father, Michael, has been sentenced to Botany Bay in Australia for stealing corn to feed his family.

Prison ships took tens thousands of men and women from Britain and Ireland to Australia in the 18th century. The term for this was ‘transportation’, and the alleged crimes ranged from petty theft to murder.

The song was first recorded in 1979 by Danny Doyle, and became a Top Ten hit in Ireland but is most commonly associated with Paddy Reilly who’s 1983 version spent 72 weeks in the Irish charts. Pete St John added: “It’s a song about hard times in Ireland’s history.

 

As well as Danny Doyle, the song has been recorded by The Dubliners, Frank Patterson, Ronan Tynan and James Galway. Brush Shiels has recorded a rock version while the definitive punk or Celtic rock version is by the Dropkick Murphys.

 

 

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 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.

Chorus

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 cut me down.

Now you must raise our child with dignity.”

Chorus

By a lonely harbour wall,

She watched the last star falling

As the prison ship sailed out against the sky

For she lived to hope and pray

For her love in Botany Bay

It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry.

Chorus

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