Some time ago two cassettes of Mayo fiddlers were produced and in the accompanying booklet one of them, Verona Henry, has this to say, talking of her family - "My brother Martin was a good singer also and very gifted with words. He wrote many songs. In fact it was he who wrote most of the original version of MacAlpine's Fusiliers, later attributed to Dominick(sic) Behan. He obviously gave it to someone and it floated around, but quite clearly many of the people that are named in the song were familiar to Martin. He actually worked with them himself. The'Darkie Finn' referred to in the song lives in the next village, Cloontia. McGeever of the song was another Cloontia person."
This is presumably the song that Tom Dahill sings.