This is truly an emotionally powerful song. We did it in our St Pat's show last year. We were rocking along with the usual rowdy, bawdy pub fare, then threw in our three-part a capella version of "Peat Bog Soldiers". The house went quiet when we started, but erupted when we finished. I suspect that many or most of them had never heard it before. The appeal seems to be in the melodic simplicity and stark phrasing, which seems to reach a part of the universal psyche and touch the hearts of people fror everywhere and anywhere, and of every background.