The March Ditch

This song is about growing up in a mixed rural community in County Down. A farm boundary, known locally as a march ditch, was often crossed by neighbours who would lend a helping hand at the sowing and harvest times. I reflected on the contrast between this togetherness and the fact that neighbours who lived just across the march ditch from us went to different schools and churches, just because they “dug with the other foot”.

The song is about the ambiguity of neighborliness and sectarianism during The Troubles. The early verses establish a period of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, the second last verse is about sectarian tit for tat murders which took place in our area of Ryan, near Mayobridge, in the mid 1970s. The final verse is a verse of hope for better times.

Lyrics and Music by Colum Sands, Copyright Elm Grove music

I sat beside the march ditch when I was very small
I could hear the neighbours working in the field behind the wall
Farmers’ children like ourselves, hungry mouths to feed
And spring was calling from the soil, it’s time to sow the seeds
Spring was calling from the soil, it’s time to sow the seeds

I played beside the march ditch when I was four or five
A thrush told all the neighbours, it’s good to be alive
The corn was shooting through the soil as we ran to and fro
And people working in the fields watched their children grow
People working in the fields watched their children grow

I worked beside the march ditch when I was nine or ten
Like the neigbours’ children, home from school again.
But if schooldays separated us because of different creeds
Our orders now were all the same, it’s time to pull the weeds
Our orders now were all the same, it’s time to pull the weeds

At seventeen the march ditch heard me sing a song
Turning hay on both sides now, as the days were turning long
We had a break in August, theirs was in July
But when one drop of rain would fall we’d all look at the sky
When one drop of rain would fall we’d all look at the sky

I sat beside the march ditch when I was twenty-five
My heart was feeling empty as the fields before my eyes
We’d heard it on the radio, another senseless death
But when it comes so close to home it chills like winter’s breath
When it comes so close to home it chills like winter’s breath

I look across the march ditch and every day I see
Someone on the other side who looks a lot like me
To share this earth between us -how long does it need?
And spring is calling from the soil, it’s time to sow the seeds
Spring is calling from the soil, it’s time to sow the seeds