The Patriot Game

The song concerns an incident during the Border Campaign launched by the Irish Republican Army during the 1950s. It was written by Dominic Behan, younger brother of playwright Brendan Behan, to the tune of an earlier folksong, "One Morning in May" (recorded by Jo Stafford and Burl Ives as "The Nightingale"). It tells the story of Fergal O'Hanlon, an IRA Volunteer from Monaghan Town, County Monaghan who was killed at the age of 20 in an attack on Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in County Fermanagh on 1 January 1957. The operation was devised and led by Seán Garland, an IRA man from Dublin. Another volunteer, Seán South from Limerick, was also killed during the raid.