OK, I'll bite. I've been hearing this song a lot on BBC radio (via the Internet). Clearly it is tongue in cheek. But it did make me go look up on the web who the heck Patrick Pearse was. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Pearse.) Patrick Pearse was court-marshalled and shot as a traitor by the British army. There was an international outcry over the fact time that he and the others died without a trial. So would he have been "allowed one last request traditional in the law"? Probably not. Does anyone know? Did someone play him "The Croppy Boy"?