The Patriot Game

Written by Irish poet Dominic Behan, the brother of legendary playwright Brendan Behan, this bitter reflection on the ongoing partition of Ireland and the IRA's often violent attempts at reunification was brought to the U.S. in the late 1950s by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. It has been recorded by dozens of folk singers on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Dubliners, Luke Kelly solo, the Wofhounds, Judy Collins, and many more.The lyrics commemorate the deaths on New Year's Eve of 1956 of two very young soldiers of the IRA, Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South, who were killed while trying to blow up a barracks of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.The Kingston Trio here is using the same lyrics as the Clancys - lyrics that elide Behan's verses about James Connolly being executed by the British while strapped to a wooden chair because he was too wounded to stand, as well as a justification for killing policemen and an indictment of the first president of the Republic of Ireland Eamon de Valera's acceptance of the division of the island nation in 1922.Every other version of this song uploaded to YouTube has ignited flaming and partisan commentary about the song and the ongoing troubles that inspired it. As much as it is an Irish Nationalist anthem, Behan's composition also remains implicitly a powerful lamentation over the sorrow and tragic cost of war and violence.