The Fields of Athenry

Hi Maiko.
The song is set during the darkest phase in Irish History. This was the Famine ,or the Great Hunger
(An Gorta Mor, in Irish) which took place between 1845 and 1847. At the time the population of Ireland was 7 to 8 million and when the famine was over it was more or less halved. Somewhere between 1 and 2 million died and another 1 to 2 million left the country, mainly to USA.
Even today Ireland has not fully recovered from this as the population is currently 4m.
At this time Ireland was a British colony and the ordinary Irish person was a tenant farmer which meant that the English landlords owned all the land and the locals had to work for them (almost like slaves) in return for a small piece of land which they would farm to try to feed themselves and their families. The best yielding crop they had was potatoes and, therefore, that became their staple diet. When the potato cropped failed ( due to potato blight) they had virtually nothing to eat and hence the starvation.
The name Famine is a misnomer in that there was still more than enough food to go around but this was being exported by the landlords and the Irish peasant had no money to buy it. In other words it was entirely unnecessary to allow the population to starve to death.
At the time the view from the British was to let things take their natural course.
As you will appreciate this is something that caused a lot of ill-feeling, to put it mildly!!
Ultimately, this phase in Irish history was the catalyst for the subsequent rebellions which won our freedom.
Also it was the time to which most Irish Americans can trace their ancestors arrival in USA and is why there is still a lot of pro-republican feeling amongst Irish Americans.
The song is about a man from Athenry in County Galway who was caught stealing food (corn) to feed his family. The punishment for this was to be transported (without his family) to Australia to work in a prison colony for the rest of his life.
In the song 'Trevillion' is the English Landlord whom he stole the corn from.
Interestingly, I don't think the song was written until the 1980's as a lot of Irish songs are much older. It was first recorded, I believe, by Paddy Reilly. The supporters of Glasgow Celtic were the first to sing it at football matches and it has spread from there. The majority of the support of Celtic are people of Irish descent and, indeed, many of them can probably trace their ancestors arrival in Scotland to the 'Famine' period.
If you want to know any more about the song, let me

 

Awesome history lesson.

My great great grandfather came to America durring the famine. I spoke with my great grandfather many times about his journey. He lived to 95 and his father till the age of 61. During any irish game you'll catch me singing along!!!

 

Written by Pete St. John in 1979, I believe he also wrote Dublin in the Rare Auld times.

 

The "owner" of the corn in question was Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, who was administrator of the famine relief in Ireland. Trevelyan's corn is in essence welfare food. Trevelyan is a complex figure to be sure and you'd do well to investigate further. He was knighted for his relief efforts. Bizzarely he declared the famine over in 1847 and abdicated repsonsibility for feeding the population to the landowners.

 

Hey Meridian! Haven't seen you around this board in quite a while. (Though you did edit one of my posts on another board for bad beautiful language recently!)

What happened? You got a promotion to SuperMod status and found it beneath you to hang around with us, the great unwashed, anymore?

 

I'm sorry did someone say something?

 

Actually I've been supermod for quite a while, which means I'm usually too busy to post much, but I still poke my head in here all the time.

Re: the post editing, I hate to do it but it's policy and all. I personally think we should be able to swear a blue streak, I know I do, but it ain't my party so I cut the admins a break.

How're tricks?

 

dThe greatest Irish song of all time is a tie between Fields, and Body of an American by Shane MacGowan and the Pogues.