Waldteufel
pfm Member
You may know this song. It's an allegory, in which the four fields are the provinces of Ireland. The narrator is an old woman, meant to be the personification of Ireland. She laments the fact that one of her fields is in bondage, and looks forward to the day when her "fine strong sons, as brave as were their fathers," will restore her lost field to her.
You obviously know what this is about. I was surprised to discover that it was written by Tommy Makem. I often saw him on stage with the Clancy Brothers, but never suspected him of harbouring such nationalist sentiments. He wrote it in 1967, just a year after the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, at a time when many old rebel songs were being dusted off, and new ones written.
Maybe he just climbed on a bandwagon. However, it was a powerful and emotive song, especially in the atmosphere which prevailed then. Shortly afterwards, the troubles started in the north, and one cannot help but feel that songs like this helped to stir things up, and that singers and groups should maybe have refrained from performing them.
The real surprise, though, is where I last heard this song. Believe it or not, it was on BBC Radio 3. The presenter was talking to the director Ken Loach, and asked him to select three songs which meant something to him. He chose Joe Hill by Paul Robeson, about an American trade union activist, the Internationale, and Four Green Fields.
The female presenter commented that the last song was very moving. And so it is, but maybe in an undesirable way. It seemed a strange comment from someone working for the BBC, which operates under a royal charter, given that the song seems to call for the violent annexation, against the democratically-stated wishes of the majority of its population, of part of her Majesty's realm.
The song is, moreover, based on a very oversimplified interpretation of modern Irish history. The province of Ulster has nine counties. Of these, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal were content to become part of the Free State, now the Irish Republic, for demographic reasons. For similar reasons, so strong was the opposition in the other six counties to being governed from Dublin that thousands turned out to express their opposition by signing the Ulster Covenant - some, if contemporary reports are to be believed, in blood.
For me, the problem of the North is a problem with no solution, unless the demographics change and nationalists end up in the majority. Until then, the most we can hope for is that a younger generation will be more tolerant of each others' wishes and beliefs than was the older one. I must say I'm not overly optimistic. I'm also concerned, remembering how things were in 1966, and what happened just three years later, that this year's centenary celebration of the Rising will charge the atmosphere once again, and inspire a disaffected nationalist youth to resume the struggle.
You obviously know what this is about. I was surprised to discover that it was written by Tommy Makem. I often saw him on stage with the Clancy Brothers, but never suspected him of harbouring such nationalist sentiments. He wrote it in 1967, just a year after the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, at a time when many old rebel songs were being dusted off, and new ones written.
Maybe he just climbed on a bandwagon. However, it was a powerful and emotive song, especially in the atmosphere which prevailed then. Shortly afterwards, the troubles started in the north, and one cannot help but feel that songs like this helped to stir things up, and that singers and groups should maybe have refrained from performing them.
The real surprise, though, is where I last heard this song. Believe it or not, it was on BBC Radio 3. The presenter was talking to the director Ken Loach, and asked him to select three songs which meant something to him. He chose Joe Hill by Paul Robeson, about an American trade union activist, the Internationale, and Four Green Fields.
The female presenter commented that the last song was very moving. And so it is, but maybe in an undesirable way. It seemed a strange comment from someone working for the BBC, which operates under a royal charter, given that the song seems to call for the violent annexation, against the democratically-stated wishes of the majority of its population, of part of her Majesty's realm.
The song is, moreover, based on a very oversimplified interpretation of modern Irish history. The province of Ulster has nine counties. Of these, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal were content to become part of the Free State, now the Irish Republic, for demographic reasons. For similar reasons, so strong was the opposition in the other six counties to being governed from Dublin that thousands turned out to express their opposition by signing the Ulster Covenant - some, if contemporary reports are to be believed, in blood.
For me, the problem of the North is a problem with no solution, unless the demographics change and nationalists end up in the majority. Until then, the most we can hope for is that a younger generation will be more tolerant of each others' wishes and beliefs than was the older one. I must say I'm not overly optimistic. I'm also concerned, remembering how things were in 1966, and what happened just three years later, that this year's centenary celebration of the Rising will charge the atmosphere once again, and inspire a disaffected nationalist youth to resume the struggle.
