On the morning of January 2, 1957, Fergal O'Hanlon, age 17, was shot and killed while he and other members of the Irish Republican Army were attempting to bomb the Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary Barracks in Northern Ireland.


The Patriot Game

Come all you young rebels, and list while we 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 in Monaghan, where I was weaned.
I've learned all my life cruel England's to blame,
And so I'm a part of the patriot game.

This Ireland of ours has for long been half free.
Six counties are under John Bull's tyranny.
So we gave up our boyhood to drill and to train ...
To play our own part in the patriot game.

It's barely two years since they wandered away.
And it was with the local battalion of the bold IRA,
For they'd read of our heroes and wanted the same:
To play their own part in the patriot game.

And now as I lie here, my body all holes,
I think of those traitors who bargained in souls.
I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game.

- Dominic Behan
(as performed by The Kingston Trio)