The Patriot Game

There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next batch of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. And everything that is not that bloody virus is a plus. At the moment we can’t meet as a group, as we are in lockdown, so I have set out a version of songs that are in our repertoire but which have not yet been recorded. With any luck (and, as three of us are north of 70, we’ll need it!) we will be able to resume our normal practice of meeting weekly and playing tunes, singing songs and generally enjoying the crack.

The Patriot Game was written by Dominic Behan to the tune of an Irish traditional song, The Merry Month of May . Its narrator is Fergal O’Hanlon, who was a member of an IRA team who attacked the RUC barracks at Brookeborough, Co. Fermanagh on New Year’s Day, 1957. He, along with Sean South from Limerick, was killed; also killed in the attack was a young Catholic constable, John Scalley. I sang the song many years ago at a pub in western Sydney and a couple of blokes there objected to the “IRA song”. Yet, I view the song as an example of the tragic deaths fuelled by love of country, particularly of young men. Interestingly, Christy Moore notes that the song is often requested at his gigs by British soldiers. Dominic Behan once, in a phone conversation, furiously berated Bob Dylan who had used the song as a template for his composition, With God On Our Side”. Dylan suggested that their lawyers should meet to discuss the situation. Behan retorted that he only had two lawyers, and they were at the end of his wrists. The version I sing retains the slighting reference to the first Irish President, Eamon de Valera, but omits the verse that justifies the killing of police officers. Yes, it is a controversial song, but, IMHO, worth singing, nevertheless.