The Patriot Game

There they go again

Yeah! It's that Guinness that does it, alright

How do these things work?

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 in Monaghan where I was weened

I've learned all my life through when England to blame

And so I'm a part of the patriot game

It's barely two years since I wandered away

With the local battalion of the bold I-R-A

I had read of our heroes and I wanted the same

To play out my part in the patriot game

They told me how Conavee was shot in a chair

His wounds from the battle, all bleeding and bare

His fine body twisted, all battered and lame

They soon made him part of 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

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 in the patriot game