"Australia: Bet you wish YOUR great-great-great grandfather stole a loaf of bread."
— Seen on a T-Shirt
Now all my young Dookies and Dutchesses
Take warning from what I've to say
Mind all is your own as you toucheses
Or you'll find us in Botany Bay
Take warning from what I've to say
Mind all is your own as you toucheses
Or you'll find us in Botany Bay
—Botany Bay
"Let me get this straight: You keep the shitty weather and shitty food, while we get the Great Barrier Reef and lobsters the size of canoes? ...I'm Jack the Ripper."
—Bill Hicks about being sent to Australia from Britain
By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling
Micheal they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
(Chorus) Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.
By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
Nothing matters Mary when you're free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled they ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.
(Chorus)
By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky
Sure she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.
(Chorus)
I heard a young girl calling
Micheal they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
(Chorus) Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.
By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
Nothing matters Mary when you're free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled they ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.
(Chorus)
By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky
Sure she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.
(Chorus)
— Pete St John, "The Fields of Athenry"
In Britain's Georgian times, there were so many crimes
No time to hang each crook guilty of a felony.
Cause there's no room to jail ya, they send you to Australia
To live in a new-fangled penal colony.
Think that sounds like heaven? In 1787,
It wasn't that kind of once-in-a-lifetime trip.
First we took the journey, months at sea so churny
Over forty died while they were on the ship!
(...)
Inmates' life still sucky, sucky sucky sucky,
Life behind bars was not very nice.
Hideous and messy,
Who would ever guess-y
This hell-hole would become a...
Holiday paradise?
No time to hang each crook guilty of a felony.
Cause there's no room to jail ya, they send you to Australia
To live in a new-fangled penal colony.
Think that sounds like heaven? In 1787,
It wasn't that kind of once-in-a-lifetime trip.
First we took the journey, months at sea so churny
Over forty died while they were on the ship!
(...)
Inmates' life still sucky, sucky sucky sucky,
Life behind bars was not very nice.
Hideous and messy,
Who would ever guess-y
This hell-hole would become a...
Holiday paradise?
—Horrible Histories, Australia song.
