As a matter of interest, other songs that Behan sang on radio that night in 1952 (on 'The Ballad Maker's Saturday Night')included, 'The Boys of Kilmichael', 'The Coolin' (his all-time favorite song), 'The Zoological Gardens', and 'We're Here Because We're Queer' (which resurfaced in his most successful work, 'The Hostage', in 1958).         

Behan had an excellent singing voice and could probably have made it as a vocalist in a ballad group. The number of songs, and fragments of songs, many self-written, that he scatters throughout his various works, shows that, had he put his mind to it, and stayed off alcohol, he could probably also have achieved major success as a songwriter.   

After all, he did have an excellent songwriting example within the family, his uncle Peadar Kearney, who wrote the Irish national anthem.