"The Wind That Shakes the Barley" is an Irish ballad written by Robert Dwyer Joyce

Robert Dwyer Joyce

Robert Dwyer Joyce was an Irish poet, writer, and collector of traditional Irish music.-Life:He was born in County Limerick, Ireland, where his parents, Garret Joyce and Elizabeth O'Dwyer, lived in the northern foothills of the Ballyhoura Mountains, west of Ballyorgan...

 (1836–1883), a Limerick

Limerick

Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...

-born poet and professor of English literature. The song is written from the perspective of a doomed young Wexford

County Wexford

County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...

 rebel who is about to sacrifice his relationship with his loved one and plunge into the cauldron of violence associated with the 1798 rebellion

Irish Rebellion of 1798

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...

 in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The references to barley

Barley

Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

 in the song derive from the fact that the rebels often carried barley or 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

Croppy

Croppy was a nickname given to Irish rebels during the period of the 1798 rebellion.- Origin :The name "croppy" derives from Ireland in the 1790s as a reference to people with closely cropped hair, a fashion which was associated with the anti-wig French revolutionaries of the period...

-holes," mass unmarked graves into which slain rebels were thrown, symbolizing the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule.

The song is no. 2994 in the Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

.

The song's title was borrowed for Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

's 2006 film of the same name

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (film)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish war drama film directed by Ken Loach, set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...

, which features the song in one scene.

Lyrics

I sat within a valley green

I sat me with my true love

My sad heart strove to choose 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 glade

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

The foeman'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

I bore her to some mountain stream

And many's the summer blossom

I placed with branches soft and green

About her gore-stained bosom

I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse

Then rushed o'er vale and valley

My vengeance on the foe to wreak

While soft winds shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse

I've taken at Oulart Hollow

Battle of Oulart Hill

The Battle of Oulart Hill took place on 27 May 1798 when a rebel gathering of 1,000 annihilated a detachment of militia sent from Wexford town to stamp out the spreading rebellion in county Wexford.-Background:...

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

Cover versions

The song has been covered by many artists including The Chieftains

The Chieftains

The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...

, Loreena McKennitt

Loreena McKennitt

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM, is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals...

, The Dubliners

The Dubliners

The Dubliners are an Irish folk band founded in 1962.-Formation and history:The Dubliners, initially known as "The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group", formed in 1962 and made a name for themselves playing regularly in O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin...

, Dolores Keane

Dolores Keane

Dolores Keane is an Irish folk singer and occasional actress. She was a founding member of the successful group De Dannan, and has since embarked on a very successful solo career, establishing herself as one of the most loved interpreters of Irish song.-Background:Keane was born in a small village...

, Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance are an ethereal neoclassical duo formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981, by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The band relocated to London in May 1982 and disbanded in 1998. Their 1996 album Spiritchaser reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart...

 (sung by Lisa Gerrard

Lisa Gerrard

Lisa Gerrard is an Australian musician, singer, and composer who rose to prominence as part of the music group Dead Can Dance with former music partner Brendan Perry....

), Altan, Solas

Solas

Solas is an Irish-American musical group formed in 1994, playing Irish traditional music as well as original compositions, sometimes demonstrating an inclination towards Country music in recent albums....

, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Dick Gaughan

Dick Gaughan

Richard Peter Gaughan usually known as Dick Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer, and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs.-Early years:...

, Orthodox Celts

Orthodox Celts

Orthodox Celts is a Serbian band which plays Irish folk music combined with rock elements. Despite their unusual sound the band is one of the top acts of the Serbian rock scene and has influenced several younger bands, most notably Tir na n'Og and Irish Stew of Sindidun.The band started their...

, Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer

Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer , sometimes known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, is an American performer who first rose to prominence as the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls...

, Fire + Ice, The Irish Rovers

The Irish Rovers

The Irish Rovers is a Canadian Irish folk group created in 1963 and named after the traditional song "The Irish Rover". The group is best known for their international television series, and renditions of traditional Irish drinking songs, as well as early hits, Shel Silverstein's "The Unicorn",...

, Sarah Jezebel Deva

Sarah Jezebel Deva

Sarah Jane , better known by her stage name Sarah Jezebel Deva, is a British vocalist. She was the female vocalist in Cradle of Filth for 14 years and also fronts her own band, Angtoria. In 2009, Deva started her self-titled solo project. The debut album A Sign of Sublime was released in February...

, Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

, Declan de Barra

Declan de Barra

Declan de Barra is an Irish musician and writer.-Music:de Barra emigrated to Australia in 1998 and started playing in various bands while studying fine art in Perth, Western Australia. He toured the country for a number of years with his group Non-Intentional Lifeform on Dutch label Roadrunner...

 and Belfast Food

Belfast Food

Belfast Food is a music band from Rijeka, Croatia, performing Irish folk and rock music under their current name since 1996.They have been featured on national charts at least once....

.

Other uses of the name

• Seán Keating
  Seán Keating
  Seán Keating was an Irish romantic-realist painter who painted some iconic images of the Irish War of Independence and of the early industrialization of Ireland...
  
   chose the title for his eponymously named 1941 painting.
• A poem by the same name was published by Katharine Tynan
  Katharine Tynan
  Katharine Tynan was an Irish-born writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. After her marriage in 1898 to the writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson she usually wrote under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson...
  
  .
• This is also the name of a fast Irish reel
  Reel (dance)
  The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
  
  .
• The Wind That Shakes the Barley, novel by James Barke about the Scots poet Robert Burns published in 1946, first of a quintet of novels on the subject.
• A studio album from Loreena McKennitt
  Loreena McKennitt
  Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM, is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals...
  
  published in 2010.
• A song of the same name appears on UK progressive rock band It Bites' comeback album "The Tall Ships", released in 2008