Tommy Sands was born, reared and still lives by the foothills of the Mourne Mountains in the North of Ireland. As a child he heard the lively fiddle and accordion, and the traditional songs and stories of his mother and father welcoming neighbours into the small farmhouse kitchen. Later with his brothers and sister, The Sands Family, he would travel the world bringing these same songs and stories to stages as far apart as Moscow's Olympic Stadium and New York's Carnegie Hall. In August 1996 he organised the historic "Citizens Assembly" in Belfast where, in a climate of "neighbourliness and humanity" created by Ulster's finest artists and literary figures, all warring political parties sat down together for the first time this century. There Were Roses is taken from his now classic 1986 album, Singing of the Times. Tommy wrote about the track, "Our house was always a great 'ceili' house and people of all persuasions would come in and sing songs and tell yarns all night. This song is about two of them. One was a Protestant, the other a Catholic."

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