The Auld Triangle

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"The Auld Triangle" is a song written by Brendan Behan, which is featured in his play The Quare Fellow. It is used to introduce the play, a story about the occurrences in a prison (in real life Mountjoy Prison where Behan had once been lodged) the day a convict is set to be executed. The song has also become known as "The Banks of the Royal Canal."

The song has taken on a sort of life of its own and has gone beyond its status of a song in a play, developing into a modern Irish anthem. Irish musical groups, including The Dubliners, The Pogues, The Doug Anthony Allstars and, most recently, Dropkick Murphys, have covered the song. An unusual live version, recorded at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, appears on the live debut album The Dawning of the Day by Dublin based pipe band St Lawrence O'Toole. It is important to note that, as with many Irish ballads, the lyrics have been changed with each passing cover. For example, the Murphys cover condenses the structure into a three-lyric section song with a chorus based on the last two lines of each stanza in the original.

Bob Dylan and The Band also recording a rendition of the song during their famed Basement Tapes sessions in 1967. This recording is widely available via bootleg.

The original lyrics are:

A hungry feeling, came o'er me stealing
And the mice were squealing in my prison cell
And the auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal

To begin start the morning, a screw was bawling
Get up ya bowsie, and clean up your cell
And that auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal

As the lags were sleeping, Humpy Gussie was creeping
As I lay there weeping for my gal Sal
And the auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal

On a fine spring evening, the lag lay dreaming
And the seagulls were wheeling high above the wall
And that auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal

Oh the wind was sighing, and the day was dying
As the lag lay crying in his prison cell
And that auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal

In the female prison there are seventy-five women
'Tis among them I wish I did dwell
And the auld triangle, could go jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal