FIELDS OF ATHENRY, THE
Created on 19/02/2004Latest update on 13/12/2023
Artist: Danny Doyle
Author: Pete St. John
Label: Release
Year: 1979
Not older than that. Athenry is a spot some 15 miles east of Galway town. You can't miss the 'low lying fields'.
Covers:
- 1982:
Barleycorn [top 10 IRE]
- 1983:
Paddy Reilly [top 5 IRE]
- 1984:
- 1986:
Century Steel Band [reggae; hit IRE]
- 1999:
Cox Crew [hit IRE]
- 2000:
- 2000s:
Liverpool supporters [as The Fields Of Anfield Road]
- 2001:
- 2001:
Dance To Tipperary [hit IRE]
- 2003:
- 2003:
Foster & Allen [hit IRE]
- 2003:
Brian O'Donnell [in film Veronica Guerin as Bad News; the song was also heard in film Dead Poets Society with the action situated in 1959, twenty years before this song was written; it does sound traditional indeed]
- 2005:
Christine Noble & the Irish Rugby Team [hit IRE]
- 2008:
Charlie Haden [vocal: his daughter Petra]
- 2010:
Telling a sad forced deportation story from the potato famine era, when desperate farmers stole unused corn from the British, costing them a one-way trip to Bantry Bay, Australia. Never to be able to see their native Athenry again, struck a common Irish string, intensified since soccer supporters started using the tune as some alternative Irish national anthem. Obvious throughout the world since Spain-Ireland during the UEFA European Championship end-round in 2012: 4-0 for Spain but only the losing supporters were singing.
