I'm looking at John Percival's book, "The Great Famine: Ireland's Potato Famine, 1845-1851." According to his account England's Tory Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, when the potato blight appeared in 1845, had two shiploads of Indian Corn [maize] imported from the U.S. which was sold at "one penny a pound." Peel chose it because it was the cheapest food available, but it was a grain that was unfamiliar to the Irish and became known in Ireland as "Peel's Brimstone," due to it's bright yellow color when ground that looked like sulphur Peel's Assistant Secretary at the Treasury, was Charles Trevelyan and was effectively the person in control of all famine relief in Ireland. He's described as "an able man... conscientious and hard working," but with "a number of failings which were to have unhappy consequences for the Irish poor." Incongruously, Trevellan was later knighted for his "services during the famine!" Whether the song's reference to stealing "Trevellan's corn" is in reference to the imported maize is not clear. One of the tragic aspects of the famine was that it did not directly effect eastern Ireland, and food stuffs continued to be exported from Ireland to England and other countries all during the famine. Trevellan had a hand in that as well as he refused to prohibit these exports, believing, much like today's "Teabaggers" in the U.S.,that to "interfere" with the "free market" and "private enterprise" would be worse than letting people starve to death. My wife and I stayed at a Bed and Breakfast just outside Athenry in 2001, choosing to stop there so we could get a look at "The Fields of Athenry." It was dusk when we got in and when we got up in the morning it was so foggy that we weren't able to see much of the fields! It seems to be quite clear that the song itself is fiction but describes what was a not uncommon occurrance and makes use of an actual setting [Athenry and the nearby harbor of Galway] and of the role of a real person, Charles Trevellan. Personally, I think it's a fine and lovely song. But then I've never had to listen to it sung repeatedly over and over. Reiver 2
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