Robbie,

I note the title of the song that Jessica (initiator of this thread) requested lyrics for is "The Hills of Athenrye." I also see that the first line in your 09:04 post this morning asks for lyrics to a song of the same title, yet you refer to "The Fields of Athenry" in the second part of your post.

I'm pretty sure there's no song called "The Hills of Athenry", having searched the web and checked every Irish music link I could find. Also, the town of Athenry lies in rich farmland, which I would tend to associate with lowlands as opposed to hilly terrain. (As in, "Low lie the fields of Athenry... .") Mind you, I've sadly never been to Ireland, so that's a huge assumption on my part. I haven't the foggiest idea whether hills are visible from any vantage point in the town. But if my assumption is correct, why would anyone be apt to write a song about hills of Athenry? I think this is likely just a case of Jessica mistaking the word "fields" for "hills." If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
   
I have a set of Soodlum's Irish ballad songbooks, and I'm almost positive there's an old version of "The Fields of Athenry" (circa 1880's) in one of them. I'll have a look when I get home (at work now.) I once heard a song with that title which had an entirely different melody and different lyrics than the Pete St. John version. I'm guessing that was the old ("traditional"?)version. Also, I read on one website that Pete based his version on the traditional version.

Cheers