Origins: Fields of Athenry (Pete St.John)

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 02:18 AM

Brian O'Donnell, age 10.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 10:01 AM

BrendanMalony

The singer (I imagine GUEST is right about the name) is a young traveller lad who often busks on Grafton St.

Regards

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Justin Fawsitt
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 12:30 PM

The charm of "The Fields Of Athenry" can best be experienced in a crowded, boozy pub on ballads night. The simple cadence "Low lie the fields..." is hard to resist, especially after a few drinks, as the usual pub cacophany coalesces into a sort of harmony. Beautiful!
God, I wish I was there right now...

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Teadoir
Date: 21 Jan 04 - 05:25 PM

Personally, I rather like the song, whatever some might think.

The Dropkick Murphys routinely play an excellent version at their shows. Interesting to see sweaty punks shouting the verses back at the stage from the pit... Folk punk, who'ld've thought?

Which leads me to a question... Just how is one supposed to produce and release anything with out fear of legal repercussions? Especially when sometimes you just come across some one in a pub singing something you like and the devil if THEY know where the tune comes from? There is the Mudcat of course, but not everything's been so well researched as we see here in this thread...


Teadoir

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: Teru
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 04:49 AM

When the FIFA World Cup was held in Japan and Korea in 2002, supporters for the Irish National Team sometimes sang this song as well as "Spirit of the Gael".

Does anyone know why the Fields of Athenry was chosen as the supporters' song ?

I know the wirter of this song is Pete St. John who wrote "Spirit of the Gael"...

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:05 PM

My favorite song! I nearly cry every time I hear it. I don't think it would have the same effect if it were recorded. There's something about the human quality of the harmonies and the sincerity with which it is sung.

d

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Noodles
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 04:00 PM

Hi i am a big fan of the fields ot Athenrye and i was just wondering if any one had the music notes for it cause i think it would be great to be able to play it.


Regards
          Noodles
          -x-x-x-x-

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From: Blackcatter
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:28 PM

There are people at Mudcat who are usually happy to research the background of songs - just start a thread (after looking through the other threads on the song, which might have the info already) to ask the question.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:35 PM

Noodles,
At JC's Tune Index, they have tunes in many formats, including, MIDI, abc, and PDF...

Fields of Athenry

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 06 Apr 04 - 05:38 PM

You might, in particular, like this PDF version, since it includes the words....

Fields of Athenry in PDF

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 01:51 AM

To Moloney,

   The more rock than traditional style of Fields of Athenry is by the Dropkick Murphys, Irelands call is by Irish Rebel.

GuinnessBoysof49

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 01:53 AM

Sorry moloney didnt notice the date was 1999.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 01:59 AM

moloney

Only read yours up until now damn the Tullys Dew

Guinness

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: erinmaidin
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 05:06 AM

Only on Mudcat can one see so much written about so little.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Lark
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 01:41 PM

I wonder how many Americans have posted on this thread... I heard this song for the first time at a Dropkick Murphys concert in Boston, surrounded by those very same "sweaty punks" and figured chances were slim that the Murphys were the composers! I am in a university a-capella group that sings (badly) Irish music (after a few too many drinks) at the top of our lungs, but I was unfamiliar with Athenry. Quite a controversy surrounding it! I'll have to do a tad more research before I dare introduce the song to the rest of the crew. Is the general consensus that Trevelyan was assistant-secretary to the treasury?      
Oi.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 03:31 PM

Charles Trevelyan - History of
It only mentions him working in Ireland as Private Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who was Lord Houghton.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 03:48 PM

For further reading:

An Gorta Mór - The Great Hunger

Political Ecology & the Irish Potato Famine - (see pages 11 and 19 for mention of Trevelyan

Mentions acting Treasury Minister Charles Trevelyan

Assistant Secretary & Greatest of the Vitorian Civil Servant

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 03:52 PM

To fix the last link above:

Assistant Secretary & Greatest of the Victorian Civil Servant

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From:
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 06:53 PM

I have a book called Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. It quotes Charles Trevelyan as saying:
"The famine is a punishment from God for an idle, ungrateful and rebellious country; an indolent and un-self-reliant people. The Irish are suffering from an affliction of God's providence."

It also quotes him as being Assistant Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury, 1847. (Knighted in 1848 for overseeing famine relief)

Does anyone know how accurate this is?

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 08:45 AM

See here

But it's wrong to see this as being anti-Irish as such. What was evident here was an insanely dogmatic Economic Liberalism at work - there is little doubt that, if it had been English people starving, his attitude would have been the same - see this passage putting it more in context.

Strange how the term "liberal" has changed its meaning.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Alice
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 02:17 PM

10 year old Brian O'Donnell, singing the chorus of Fields of Athenry in the film score for Veronica Guerin, can be heard in this sound clip. The movie track is called "Bad News".
Click here

from www.cinemusic.net/reviews/2003/veronica_guerin.html
Veronica Guerin (film)
soundtrack
quote
..."Bad News" performed by Brian O'Donnell from the scene following
Veronica's murder. Gregson-Williams wrote and orchestrated these songs,
performed emotionally by O'Connor. "Bad News" is probably the most
touching track on the album, as Gregson-Williams outlines in the liner
notes. He heard a boy (O'Donnell) singing on the street for money in
Dublin when he arrived to spend a few days on the set of the film.
Later, he tracked the boy down again and recorded him singing six or
seven folk songs a Capella in a quiet alley. Gregson-Williams chose
"Fields of Athenry" from the recording and added his own music around
the song for the moving scene to create a piece of music that is as
authentic as one could get. Easily the best track on the album,
Gregson-Williams' most complex orchestration with violin, flute, and
french horn follows O'Donnell's song, backed by light marching percussion..." end quote



- Alice

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Slim Jim
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:25 PM

McGRATH please apply for a brain transplant, "there is little doubt that had English people been starving, his attitude would have been the same", duck here comes a flying pig.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:45 PM

You underestimate the strength of fanatical political dogma, Slim Jim. Trevelyan believed that the deaths of uneconomically viable people in a famine were a price worth paying for economic and social changes he wished to see.

It's a way of thinking that has been common enough over the last century in a number of regimes, and it still is today. People who think like that aren't too worried about the nationality of the people who pay that price.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:47 PM

You underestimate the strength of fanatical political dogma, Slim Jim. Trevelyan believed that the deaths of uneconomically unviable people in a famine were a price worth paying for economic and social changes he wished to see.

It's a way of thinking that has been common enough over the last century in a number of regimes, and it still is today. People who think like that aren't too worried about the nationality of the people who pay that price.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,David k
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 01:30 PM

anyone got the brush shields versioin ?

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Tradsinger
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 03:12 PM

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned Peter St John's "Rare Old Times" which IMHO is a much better songs than the F of A.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,anyone know where to get the instrumental of
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 07:54 AM

anyone know where to get the unstrumental of athenry

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 10:07 AM

Love the idea of an UNSTRUMENTAL. That'll be unaccompanied voices, then? If it's not a word already, it should be! :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,UNSTRUMENTAL
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 06:03 AM

Hehe, sorry, i did mean instrumental.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 05 - 10:51 AM

Subject: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: erinmaidin
Date: 13 May 05 - 08:51 PM

Met a woman a week or so ago, fairly in her cups she was, who insisted that her gran wrote "Fields of Athenry". Would love some solid evidence to find out if it is at all possible that she is telling the truth! Anyone?

---

I moved this message here from another thread on the same topic.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 May 05 - 09:26 PM

In my time, I've met drunks who claimed all sorts of things like that. I don't think that you need attach any weight at all to what she told you; unless her grandmother was a man called Pete, perhaps.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,seamus
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 01:35 PM

who sings the fields of athenry in the soundtrack of the film veronica guerin ?

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: MartinRyan
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:12 PM

Guest Seamus
The answer is given elsewhere in this (marathon) thread as Brian O'Donnell.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,The Establishers
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:09 PM

Hi to all
Wow this thread has taken some reading and also has enlightened me for one .
Myself and my wife have worked in the entertainment industry now for 10yrs and have over the last 2 yrs put Fields Of Athenry in our sets
yes i say sets as we have in all 5 seperate sets of songs and this great song is in all of them .
we have performed it in england ,northern ireland and europe and have always had a great response and never been shown the door .
well done   Pete St john if you did write it and if not well done anyway for reviving the song .

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: MartinRyan
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:24 PM

He wrote it!

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,GUEST, Gerry
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 03:22 PM

All I did was to look up the lyrics and I found myself - somehow - here.
Many thanks to all contributors for an enlightening read. I have a mate, Roy, who's played a few gigs with Pete St. John in the past, and he told me that Pete wrote it. That seems pretty well confirmed now.

Thanks again

Gerry

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Frank_Finn
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 05:39 PM

Here is another version of Fields Of Athenry

Composed by Tony Waldron and John Flanagan

Down by the Clareen's mossy banks one evening I did stray
To while away the leisure hours before the close of day.
My mind began to wander to the days long long gone by
When I roamed as free as Gaoth na Sí o'er the fields of Athenry.

T'was often with our dogs and sticks just at the break of day,
Barefooted o'er the dew clad grass we carelessly did stray.
To hunt the rabbits and course the hare 'til the moon rose in the sky.
Those were the happy days we spent, round the fields of Athenry.

Then homeward bound at evening time we'd wend our weary way
And we'd talk of the thrills and all the spills that we had throughout the day
And when the new moon we would see up in the evening sky
And we'd hear the curlew's plaintive call round the Fields of Athenry

And we had some famous hunting dogs I'll mention but a few.
There was Red and Speed and Rebel brave, we had noble Murty too.
But Bruno was the king of all as o'er the sod he'd fly
And 'twas woe betide the hare that strayed 'round the fields of Athenry.

All through the long hot summer days through those green fields we strayed.
While a youthful blood coursed in our veins and death seemed far away.
Sure we thought we were immortal that 'twas just the old that died.
Ah but now there's few of the friends I knew round the fields of Athenry.

I remember well young Jimmy so wild without a care.
As he sped across the moorlands you could see his flaxen hair
Just to watch himself and Rebel it would fill your heart with joy.
As they hunted for the rabbits 'round the fields of Athenry.

I recall to mind young Joseph who left for the Irish guards.
He was tall and square with long blonde hair he outran us all by yards.
But still in all his ramblings beneath an alien sky,
In his heart he was home a-hunting round the fields of Athenry.

Ah but now I'm old and my head is grey and I'm bowed with the weight of years.
When I think about those happy times sure my eyes grow dim with tears.
But still I love to ramble where the trout rise to the fly.
Down by the Clareen's mossy banks that flows through Athenry.

And when the Lord will call for me and my final peace be made.
On that hallowed hill above the town 'tis there I will be laid.
And when the final judgement comes with its fanfare from the sky
I will rise and then I will hunt again 'round the fields of Athenry

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 05:57 PM

Frank

A very different (and in my opinion), much more "traditional-feeling" song - though written after Pete St. John's one! I've told the story elsewhere in this forum of how I sang a shortened version of Tim Dennehy's already shortened version of John Flanagan's original, in Kinvara a few years ago - and found out that John was sitting in front of me at the time!

Great song.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Frank_Finn
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:56 PM

Hello Martin. A great song indeed and a refreshing alternative to the more popular version. I know the air but have not performed it yet. It is a common enough air but what other song is sung to it. Racking my brains here!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 08:12 PM

Frank

Whenever you get that feeling, the answer is always the same. It's a version of "The Star of the County Down"! On at least one occasion I've sat through a session and sung only songs to versions of that tune - without anyone realising it!

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: Frank_Finn
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 08:05 AM

Of course   --- thats it

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,SinnFein
Date: 09 Dec 08 - 05:26 PM

DKM's version rocks.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,SinnFein
Date: 09 Dec 08 - 05:29 PM

That would be The Dropkick Murphys.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: ardmacha joe
Date: 10 Dec 08 - 08:24 AM

There are many fine versions of The Fields of Athenry.I agree with an earlier answer Pete St John wrote these words

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: trevek
Date: 10 Dec 08 - 09:38 AM

I believe Robert Kee gives a list of some of the cargoes departing from Ireland at the time. There was an amzing amount of food, including meat, being shipped abroad.

With regards to Pete St John's alleged use of older songs, I always thought "Flight of Earls" sounded a lot like the Wevford song "The Auld Caubeen".

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: trevek
Date: 10 Dec 08 - 09:42 AM

Did anyone else giggle when they heard FoA played in the film "Dead Poets' Society"? The film is set in the 1950's, at least 25 years before the song was written.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: GUEST,JOM
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 03:18 PM

What puzzles me is why Pete St John has never been able his copyright and c ollect royalties, if he is indeed the author of the song

Subject: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: mg
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 05:25 PM

Is this an older song? I came across this on internet that says it was published in 1888 but I am not sure where this is from

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.iisresource.org/Documents/0A1_Irish_History_Song.pdf&embedded=true

Were the words older and Pete St. John put the tune to it or is my internet find not true? mg

Subject: RE: Origins: Fields of Athenry
From: BobKnight
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 05:37 PM

As far as I'm aware it was written by Pete St John.