Irish Chaplaincy blog: The Fields of Athenry

Photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash

It was my first visit to HMP Chelmsford in three years and what a comeback it was.

Philomena (affectionately known as Sr P), the Roman Catholic chaplain of twenty years standing, had asked if I would come and sing The Fields of Athenry again at a Traveller forum. I said I would be delighted to and would bring my guitar and do a few other songs too. Partly in view of what had happened three years previously I was especially keen to do my best gig (see last blog The Power of Music). The occasion also merited my best guitar, even if it's a bit cumbersome to carry.

So it was that I turned up at the prison with my beautiful (albeit heavy) Ovation and was met on the other side of security by the lovely Philomena who escorted me over to the multi-faith room. There arrived in dribs and drabs the group of mainly Travellers which included as well a couple of English Gypsies and even, this time, a Roma guy. They were excited to meet up with their mates from different wings and they were, as they always are, great company. They were also relieved to get out of their cells for a blessed couple of hours. The session began with a woman doing a sort of mindfulness presentation and giving an explanation of what happens to the body when we get stressed and useful tips on how to manage that in a way that doesn't lead to us getting into a fight! It was excellent and everyone was totally absorbed in what she was saying.

It was then over to me and there were some fascinated looks as I got the Ovation out of its case and began to tune up. I started with the song I'd finished with at my recent gig in a care home The Wild Rover and, by contrast with those at the care home, this was a group that needed no warming up. Whilst there were just one or two who were singing along, several of those present seemed transfixed by the guitar, or perhaps with what I was doing with it! Who knows! And even if they were a bit on the shy side they were clearly touched by the music. I was also telling little stories in between numbers to what was a deeply receptive and appreciative audience.

I asked if they'd like to hear one of my own songs, and luckily they said yes! I told the story of how Yim Soon and I had been in Ireland ten years before to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary and how we'd been at a music bar one night in Belfast. I explained that Fibber McGees, the song named after the bar, was about the particular power that music has to bring people together and to transcend our differences in religion, nationality, culture etc. I sang it well, and I liked seeing how everyone was tapping their feet and swaying their bodies. The woman who had led the mindfulness session looked like she was about to get up and dance (and she told me afterwards that she nearly did!). I slowed things down for the song that I told them was my wife's favourite, When you were Sweet Sixteen, and I enjoyed singing that too, and one of the prison officers looked like she was about to burst into tears!

And for the grand finale it was the song that I'd sung in that same place three years before. I told the group how Ellena and I had arrived that day for the Traveller Forum only to be told the tragic news that someone had taken their own life in their cell. The forum had, against all the odds, gone ahead and the band, McCool Trad., had played and the music had lifted the spirits, and Sr P. wanted to dance and I had gladly been her partner. And I had done a few songs with the band as Finn, the usual singer, hadn't been able to make it that day. And there was a request for The Fields of Athenry and one of the guys had come up to sing with me. "And he had no teeth," Philomena added. Of which I had no memory at all! What I do remember is how he put his arm around me and we sang together into the mic. and everyone was roaring out the words to the chorus and punching the air. And I will never ever forget the pure joy in that room. The power of music…

A song is like a living, breathing organism that is constantly changing. Just as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed that you can never step in the same river twice (the river will have changed the second time round, and so will the person!), so too is a song different each time it is sung, depending on all kinds of variables: the audience, the mood, the particular circumstances surrounding that particular occasion, the singer and how they feel at that moment and their own memories of previous times they've sung that song.

Each time now that I sing The Fields of Athenry there's a part of me that recalls that day when that young man came up and put his arm around me and sang with me. The song is indelibly marked for me with the memory of what happened on that day in that place with that particular group of people and the particular circumstance in which we came together. Three years on, and a few subsequent renditions later, the mood was not quite as exuberant as it had been before. And that was fine. It was no less special.

As the men got up to return to their cells they all said how much they had enjoyed the singing, and so did the couple of prison officers. And the Roma guy came up to me and said, "Thanks for the music. It chills me; it makes me happy." "It was a pleasure for me," I replied. And it really was.

IRISH CHAPLANCY ADVENT RETREAT
December 5th-9th 2022 via zoom
Daily zoom conference at 9.30am (lasting 30-45 mins), including a reflection each day from a different speaker.
Contact: eddie.gilmore@irishchaplaincy.org.uk
There is no charge, and you don't need to attend every day!

LINK

Irish Chaplaincy - www.irishchaplaincy.org.uk