Name: Patriot Game
Duration: 3 min 17 s
Channel: words and music traditional
Description: License options are available for this song. Tune: 'One Morning In May', or 'God on Our Side'. This song was written by Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan. Undoubtedly one of the best ballads ever to come out of the Irish struggles.

Single $1

Tune: 'One Morning In May', or 'God on Our Side'. This song was written by Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan. Undoubtedly one of the best ballads ever to come out of the Irish struggles.

irish folk songs scottish

Marc Gunn

Marc Gunn is an Irish and Scottish folk singer with a strange affinity for Celtic ballads, drinking songs and cats, and he is the lead singer for the Brobdingna

Marc Gunn is an Irish and Scottish folk singer with a strange affinity for Celtic ballads, drinking songs and cats, and he is the lead singer for the Brobdingnagian Bards.

Song Info

Genre

World • Traditional Celtic

Author

words and music traditional

Rights

Marc Gunn

Uploaded

April 19, 2007

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.0 MB • 192 kbps • 3:17

Lyrics

Come all ye 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've just turned sixteen.
My home is in Monaghan, and where I was weaned
I learned all my life cruel England's to blame,
So now I am part of the patriot game.

This Ireland of ours has too long been half free.
Six counties lie under John Bull's tyranny.
But still De Valera is greatly to blame
For shirking his 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.

It's nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA,
For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play out my part in the patriot game.

[extra verse I found]
I don't mind a bit if I shoot down police
They are lackeys for war never guardians of peace
And yet at deserters I'm never let aim
The rebels who sold out the patriot game

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