Song of the Day 3/17: Paddy Reilly, “The Fields of Athenry”

Nobody writes more heart-rending ballads than the Irish, which is fitting given the litany of tragedies they’ve suffered, mostly at the hands of the British. None has had a greater effect on the national psyche than the Great Famine of 1845-52.

Most people think the calamity was the result of the potato blight, and that was the proximate cause. Yet the disease that destroyed potato crops swept across many countries in northern Europe at the time; Ireland was the only one where 1 million people died of starvation and the diseases brought on by malnutrition. As noted by 19th-century Irish historian John Mitchel, “The Almighty may have sent the potato blight, but the English caused the famine.” Between death and emigration, Ireland’s population was halved over the next 50 years.

Folklorists have noted that the Great Hunger was so cataclysmic that few troubadours wrote about it in the aftermath, theorizing that the trauma was so great people didn’t want to recall it even in song. The most famous ballad set during the famine, “The Fields of Athenry,” wasn’t written until 1979 by singer-songwriter Pete St. John.

The story it tells, of a man sentenced to transport to Australia for stealing food, is consistent with contemporary accounts of deportation. The line about “Trevelyan’s corn” is a reference to Charles Trevelyan, the English bureaucrat charged with administering famine relief. Guided by the Whig government’s laissez-faire economic policy, he refused to interfere with the export of Irish-grown grain that could have alleviated the suffering. The British also expressed fear that government intervention would make the Irish dependent on hand-outs. Some things never change.

St. John’s song was popular from the first, and is as well-known in Ireland as the national anthem. It’s been recorded by dozens of artists, five of whom reached the country’s charts with it. The best-known version is Paddy Reilly’s, which stayed on the Irish charts for almost a year and a half.

Perhaps the most famous performance of “The Fields of Athenry” wasn’t by any professional singer. During the 2012 EUFA Euro 2012 tournament in Gdansk, Poland, the Irish team, facing elimination, trailed Spain 4-0 late in the second half. As time wound down the Irish fans filling the stands broke into the song and sang it for the final 10 minutes of the match.