From Dominic Behan's "The Singing Irish"

DUNGANNON '57
words by Dominic Behan
From "the singing irish"

Some men went to Dunganon Town
The barracks for to case,
And noticed how the noble crown
Gave class to that brand new place

Ch.
With your IRA ricochet! play it on your Lambeg drum!

The RUC knew that we
Had planned to have some sport
For they'd read a peice by Dev's police
In a Free State news report

They read the papers satisfied
And said "Well now, that's that"
When suddenly to their surprise
Came a big loud RAT-TAT-TAT-Tat

Who's out there? What can we do?
For God's sake stop this lark
Are you Fenians or Red White and Blue
You out there in the dark

One fella stole out warily
But quickly withdrew again
When he found that he was staring down
the barrel of a STEN

The Free State news became a fact From a shower of dust and smoke

When those gardians of the nation thought
The lads were gone for good
They came out to find no station where
A station once had stood

There are ten loyal policemen now
Signing on the dole
And they'd love to get Dev's Irish Pres
And well upon my soul.

Dominic's note:- About four weeks before a proposed attack on Dungannon Barracks in the North of Ireland, the police from 26 counties raided a house and found papers pertaining to the raid which were published in one of the biggest selling Irish newspapers, "The Irish Press". The IRA went ahead with their plans.

I was not aware that the contents of Dominic's book were hard to find, (See posts above). I first met Dominic in the Victoria Bar in Glasgow where he greated me with :- "Your a folk singer, I wrote all the songs you sing, buy me a drink, you owe me", we had many an argument about whether he did or not, he got his drink, I got his books.
love, john