The Wind That Shakes the Barley (song)
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The Wind that Shakes the Barley is an Irish ballad written by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836-1883), a Limerick born poet and professor of English literature. Its title was borrowed for the Ken Loach film which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006.
[edit] Background
The song is written from the perspective of a doomed young Wexford rebel who is about to sacrifice his relationship with his loved one and plunge into the cauldron of violence associated with the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. The references to barley in the song derive from the fact that the rebels often carried barley oats in their pockets as provisions for when on the march. This gave rise to the post-rebellion phenomenon of barley growing and marking the "croppy-holes", mass unmarked graves which slain rebels were thrown into, symbolising the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule.
The song has been covered by many artists including;
A poem by the same name was published by Katharine Tynan
[edit] Lyrics
- I sat within the valley green, I sat me with my true love
- My sad heart strove the two between, the old love and the new love
- The old for her, the new that made me think on Ireland dearly
- While soft the wind blew down the glen and shook the golden barley
- 'Twas hard the woeful words to frame to break the ties that bound us
- But harder still to bear the shame of foreign chains around us
- And so I said, "The mountain glen I'll seek at morning early
- And join the bold united men, while soft winds shake the barley"
- While sad I kissed away her tears, my fond arms round her flinging
- A yeoman's shot burst on our ears from out the wildwood ringing
- A bullet pierced my true love's side in life's young spring so early
- And on my breast in blood she died while soft winds shook the barley
- But blood for blood without remorse I've taken at Oulart Hollow
- And laid my true love's clay cold corpse where I full soon may follow
- As round her grave I wander drear, noon, night and morning early
- With breaking heart when e'er I hear the wind that shakes the barley.
