The Patriot Game
Come all you young rebels and list’ while I sing
For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.
My name is O’Hanlon, and I’m just gone sixteen
My home is Monaghan where I was weaned
I’ve learned all my life cruel England to blame
And so I’m a part of the patriot game.
It’s barely two years since I wandered away
With a local battalion of the bold I.R.A.
I’d read of our heroes and I wanted the same
To play out my part in the patriot game.
This island of ours has for long been half-free
Six counties are under John Bull’s tyranny
So I gave up my boyhood to drill and to train
To play my own part in the patriot game.
They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game.
And now as I lie here, my body all holes
I think of those traitors who bargained and sold
I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those quislings who sold out the patriot game.
–Dominic Behan