Set during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the lyrics feature a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway, who stole food for his starving family and has been sentenced to transportation to the Australian penal colony at Botany Bay.
In 1831, a visitor to Ireland recorded the anguish of the transported and their families: "The first sound I heard as I approached the Irish coast, was the accent of distress.
When Celtic's long-serving Irish goalkeeper Packie Bonner had a testimonial match in 1991, he invited Pete St. John to attend the event and speak to the crowd before the game.
In recognition of this, the town's officials invited Pete St. John to a civic reception and presented him with a mace and chain as a token of their appreciation.
"The Fields of Anfield Road" was adopted by Liverpool supporters to the same tune, but with adapted lyrics referencing their history and stadium.
competed to drown out the lusty warblings of a large Irish contingent who returned to singing of the problems of social isolation in rural Athenry.
"[15] During the UEFA Euro 2012 group stage game against Spain, the Irish fans started singing the song roughly 83 minutes into the game and sang for the last six minutes of regulation, as well as past the full-time whistle, knowing that they were going to be eliminated from the group as they were down by four goals and had failed to accrue the points necessary to remain in the tournament.
[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Other artists to have recorded versions include Mary Duff, Máiréad Carlin, Paddy Reilly, Daniel O'Donnell, Frank Patterson, Ronan Tynan, Brush Shiels, James Galway, The Dubliners, Charlie Haden with daughter Petra Haden, Seanchai & The Unity Squad, Scottish band North Sea Gas, English folk singer Felix Slander, English band Kelda with vocalist Jack Routledge, US group Shilelagh Law, US punk band No Use for a Name, New Zealanders Hollie Smith and Steve McDonald, Dropkick Murphys, London-Irish band Neck, The Durutti Column, The High Kings, The Irish Tenors, Off Kilter and Kieran Moriarty.
Irish-Londoners, Neck, released a "Psycho-Ceilidh" version of the song as a single in support of the Republic of Ireland national football team during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
[28][29] Dropkick Murphys recorded two versions of the song: the first, an uptempo rock arrangement, appeared on their 2003 album Blackout; the second was a softer version they recorded specially for the family of Sergeant Andrew Farrar, a United States Marine from the 2nd Military Police Battalion killed January 28, 2005 (his 31st birthday) in Fallujah, Iraq.
[32] Welsh folk singer Dafydd Iwan used the tune for his song "Esgair Llyn", a lament on the depopulation of rural Wales.
[36] The song is sung in the movie Veronica Guerin, by Brian O'Donnell, then aged 11, a street singer in Dublin, although it is credited on the soundtrack as "Bad News".