The Auld Triangle

“The Auld Triangle” is a song composed by Dominic Behan for his brother Brendan, the renowned Irish playwright. It 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 triangle in the title refers to the large metal triangle which was beaten daily in Mountjoy Prison to waken the inmates (“The Auld Triangle goes Jingle Jangle”). The triangle still hangs in the prison at the centre where the wings meet on a metal gate. It is no longer used, though the hammer to beat it is mounted beside it. 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. Musical groups as diverse as The Dubliners, The Pogues, The Doug Anthony Allstars, U2, Dropkick Murphys, the High Kings, and Poor Angus, among others, 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. Laurence O’ Toole. 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. The Swell Season have also included the song in their live performances.

Bob Dylan and The Band also recorded a rendition of the song during their famed Basement Tapes sessions in 1967. This recording is widely available via bootleg. It has also been recorded by Bert Jansch and appears on his 2006 album The Black Swan. The song has also been recorded by Jeff Tweedy on his tour DVD Sunken Treasure: Live in the Pacific Northwest, and sung live by the Oysterband: it appears on their now-deleted ‘Alive and Acoustic’ recording.

Eric Burdon also recorded a version of it, retitled “The Royal Canal”.

The seminal midwestern Irish Band of the 1980s, The Old Triangle (Mike Wallace, Pete Yeates, Steve Mulligan), took their name from the song and also recorded it.

It was also sung in the short film, “Macbeth Retold”, starring James McAvoy, one of the three part ShakespeaRe-Told film produced by the BBC during November 2005.

In December 2008, popular American Singer and Songwriter, Cat Power released her Dark End Of The Street EP, in which she performs a version of the song titled “Ye Auld Triangle”.

The Frames performed ‘The Auld Triangle’ as their final song of a 2 hour concert at the Vic Theater in Chicago on November 23, 2010. Glen Hansard, the lead singer of The Frames and Damien Dempsey released ‘The Auld Triangle’ in Ireland on Friday 3rd December, 2010 to raise awareness and funds for the charity Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. They performed the song live on ‘The Saturday Night Show’ on RTE televison on December 19th of the same year.