The Fields Of Athenry: A Song History

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"The Fields Of Athenry" is a modern Irish ballad by Pete St. John, the professional name of the Dublin songwriter Peter Mooney (1932–2022), who wrote both its words and its melody.[1] St. John had spent years working in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean before settling back in Dublin in the late 1970s, and many of his songs deal with social and economic change in Ireland.[2] This one looks further back, to the Great Famine of 1845–1850: its fictional Galway man is caught taking food for his hungry family and is sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay in Australia.[3] A mid-1990s claim traced the words to an 1880s broadsheet ballad, but the folklorist John Moulden found nothing to support that idea.[1]

Etching of a man ploughing a field behind a team of horses, with a large tree at right and mountains behind.

David Little, Ploughing - Burragorang, New South Wales, Australia, etching, 1908–48. Ploughing in New South Wales, the colony to which the song's Galway man is sentenced to transportation at Botany Bay; the etching dates from the twentieth century and has no connection to the song.

Danny Doyle made the first recording in 1979 and took it into the Irish top ten; one account puts its peak at No. 2.[1][3] Paddy Reilly's 1982 single then spent 72 weeks on the Irish charts.[4] Sports crowds made the song their own: one account traces this to supporters of Galway's inter-county GAA team, and it was taken up by Irish soccer fans at the 1990 World Cup, by Celtic fans in Glasgow, and at Ireland's rugby internationals.[1][3] When St. John died in March 2022, on the day Ireland met England in the Six Nations, President Michael D. Higgins remarked that the fixture had been "indelibly associated" with the song for decades.[5]

Shelley Stevens arranges it as a duet in Baker's Dozen #8: Rounds And Duets, a collection of thirteen rounds and duets for two or more mountain dulcimers in DAD tuning, with standard notation and tablature, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]

Our book that contains the song "The Fields Of Athenry"

Sources

  1. The Great Irish Songbook (Hot Press): "The Fields of Athenry".
  2. IMRO: "IMRO Pays Tribute to Legendary Songwriter Pete St. John – RIP".
  3. The Irish Post: "Low lie, the Fields of Athenry! Seven facts about Ireland's iconic unofficial anthem".
  4. The Irish Post: "Tributes paid as Fields of Athenry songwriter Pete St John passes away".
  5. President of Ireland: "Statement by President Higgins on the death of Pete St John".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #8: Rounds And Duets".
  7. Image: David Little, Ploughing - Burragorang, New South Wales, Australia, etching, 1908–48. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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