Peter Mooney (31 January 1932 – 12 March 2022), known professionally as Pete St John, was an Irish folk singer-songwriter. Born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Ireland, he was best known for composing "

The Fields of Athenry "The Fields of Athenry" is a song written in 1979 by Pete St. John in the style of an Irish folk ballad. Set during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the lyrics feature a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway, who stole food for hi ...

Life and career

St John was born in

Inchicore Inchicore () is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Located approximately west of the city centre, Inchicore was originally a small village separate from Dublin. The village developed around Richmond Barracks (built 1810) and Inchicore railway works ...

, Dublin in 1932. Educated at

Synge Street CBS Synge Street CBS (colloquially Synger) is a boys' non-fee-paying state school, under the auspices of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, located in the Dublin 8 area of Dublin, Ireland. The school was founded in 1864 by Can ...

and trained as an electrician, he emigrated to Canada before returning to Ireland in the 1970s. He wrote "The Fields of Athenry" in 1979, and it has been recorded by several artists, charting in the

Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are bas ...

on a number of occasions. A recording by

Paddy Reilly Patrick "Paddy" Reilly (born 18 October 1939) is an Irish folk singer and guitarist. Born in Rathcoole, County Dublin, he is one of Ireland's most famous balladeers and is best known for his renditions of "The Fields of Athenry", "Rose of Alle ...

, which was released in 1982, remained in the Irish charts for 72 weeks. St John also composed a number of other modern

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s, such as "

The Rare Ould Times "The Rare Ould Times" is a song composed by Pete St. John in the 1970s for the Dublin City Ramblers. It is sometimes called "Dublin in the Rare Ould Times", "The Rare Old Times", or "The Rare Auld Times". Description In the song, the narrator, Se ...

" and " The Ferryman", which have been recorded by several artists, including

The Dubliners The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-yea ...

James Last James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of ...

, and Mary Black. A version of "The Rare Ould Times", as sung by Danny Doyle, spent 11 weeks in the

, reaching No. 1 in 1978. St John's songs, including "The Rare Ould Times" and "The Ferryman", sometimes express regret for the loss of old certainties (for example the loss of

Nelson's Pillar Nelson's Pillar (also known as the Nelson Pillar or simply the Pillar) was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, built in the centre of what was then Sackville Street (later renamed O'Connell Street) in Dublin, Ireland. ...

and the Metropole Ballroom, two symbols of old Dublin, as progress makes a "city of my town"). St John won several awards, including the

Irish Music Rights Organisation The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) is a national organisation that administers the performing right in copyright music in Ireland on behalf of its members (who are songwriters, composers and music publishers) and on behalf of the songwrite ...

"Irish Songwriter of the Year". He died in Dublin on 12 March 2022, at the age of 90.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:St John, Pete 1932 births 2022 deaths Irish folk singers Irish male singer-songwriters People educated at Synge Street CBS Singers from Dublin (city)

Life and career

See also

References

External links