I have it on a tape by Tom Dahill. He grew up in an Irish-American part of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (in Minnesota, USA), and visited Ireland to flesh out his Irish music repertoire. As far as I know, he is still a professional singer/musician, doing mostly or exclusively Irish music.

He introduces the song with a bit of background for it. It was written by one of the Brendan brothers (Dominick and Behan--I think Dominick wrote it), and is based on their father Steven, mentioned in the song. They grew up in an area of Dublin that had many retired British Army officers. Steven Brendan would often spend the night at the pub, then come home "under the influence" and call out his neighbors to fight.

I'm writing this from memory, so I apologize if I goofed on any details, but I'm pretty sure the gist is correct. I may have mixed up "Brendan" and "Behan" (in other words, it's Dominick and Brendan Behan). For some reason, I always thought the song dated from the 60's, but I don't know for sure. I too am curious about the three names mentioned, but haven't gotten around to doing any research on them. Hopefully another Mudcatter can provide the rest of the info.