The Patriot Game - The Bluebells

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, I’ve just turned sixteen

My home is in Monaghan, where I was weaned

I learned all my life injustice to blame

And so I’m part of the patriot game

It’s barely two years since I wandered away

With the local battalion of the old IRA

They told me of heroes, I wanted the same

To play a great part in the patriot game

Where is the young man, this Earth ever taught

Whose life is less sacred then all the old fraught

Whose boy who’s less lucky, whose visionless fate

Than the old men who paid for the patriot game

And now as I’m dying, my body all holes

I think of the old men who bargained and sold

I’m sorry my rifle has not done the same

To those rebels who sold out the patriot game