Can you sing the national anthem better than our hockey team?

Do you know all the words – in Irish or English – to Amhrán na bhFiann?

And if you do, can you explain what they mean?

Many of us falter and stumble with the lyrics of our national anthem after that initial “Sinne Fianna Fáil”.

That periodically recurring question arose again this week when the Irish Olympic hockey team valiantly rose to the occasion and, to widespread amusement, sang the song a cappella in the absence of a recorded version.

International athletes don’t tend to have great singing voices, but it was suggested they should have made a better fist of the lyrics. This seems doubly unfair. Several of the team come from an Ulster Protestant background, and, if half the rest don’t know all the words, that makes them pretty representative of the country as a whole.

Reacting to the incident, Fine Gael Senator Neale Richmond called on his party colleague, Minister for Education Richard Bruton, to make the learning of Amhrán na bhFiann a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum.

Richmond said it was increasingly clear that many Irish people "simply do not know the words or tune to Amhrán na bhFiann". He told The Irish Times that he himself had never been taught the anthem at school, but had learned it at Irish college in the Donegal Gaeltacht in the 1990s. He believes a phonetic approach, combined with teaching the historical and cultural context in which the song was written, should be introduced in the curriculum.

In a Twitter poll on the issue, 47 per cent of respondents said they knew all the words, 37 per cent that they knew some and faked the rest and 13 per cent admitted total ignorance (2 per cent had never heard of Amhrán na bhFiann). In an Irish Times video on the subject, the responses on the streets of Dublin were similar. Some had been taught the words in primary school, others at Irish college. A few had even been taught the entire song, rather than the chorus which usually suffices at State events and sporting occasions.

Resorting to ruses

Many of the respondents had a purely phonetic grasp of the lyrics, resorting to ruses such as “shoving Connie around the field” instead of “Seo dhíbh canáigh, Amhrán na bhFiann”. However, there was a general positivity towards the song, with a thumping majority in favour of teaching it in primary school.

Like many anthems, Amhrán na bhFiann is the product of a different musical and political era. References to cannon and rifles don't sit well with modern sensibilities, so it might be just as well that Peadar Kearney's original, English-language version has been superseded by the later, less well-understood Irish text.

In either language, though, the Soldier's Song (as it was originally known) is not the easiest song to master.

“The anthem itself is a tricky one with a lamenting tune,” Richmond acknowledges. “The lyrics can be very difficult for many, particularly those with a poor standard of spoken Irish.”

All the more reason, he believes, to embark on a process of revival. "The 1916 commemorations saw many schoolchildren exposed to the proper singing of our national anthem, which was a good thing. We should be proud of our anthem as we are of our country."

HELP FOR THE HOCKEY TEAM

AMHRAN NA bhFIANN (Irish version) Sinne Fianna Fáil, Atá faoi gheall ag Eirinn, Buíonn dár slua, thar toinn do ráinig chugainn, Faoi mhóid bheith saor, seantír ár sinsear feasta Ní fhágfar faoin tíorán ná faoin trail

SOLDIERS’ SONG (English version) Soldiers are we, Whose lives are pledged to Ireland, Some have come from a land beyond the wave, Sworn to be free, no more our ancient sireland Shall shelter the despot or the slave

OW-RAWN NA VEE-AN (Phonetic version) Shin-na Fee-nah Fawl, Ah-taw fay gal egg er-rin, Bween dar sloo-ah, harr tee-un duh rawn-nig hug-gan, Fay void vet ser, shan-teer or shin-sheer faw-sta Nee fog-far fween teer-awn naw fween trawl