Fergal O'Hanlon and Se�?n South, two young IRA men who were involved in the IRA's failed 1956-1962 border campaign, were fatally wounded in an attack on Brookeborough Barracks on New Year's Day 1957.

Their deaths inspired the ballads 'The Patriot Game' and the infamous rebel song 'Se�?n South from Garryowen'.

The IRA's failed border campaign - 'Operation Harvest' - aimed to use volunteers from the South to target barracks along the border. During the Brookeborough attack, two mines, intended to breach the barracks' defences, failed to explode, giving the RUC officers time to open fire.

South, from Limerick, and O'Hanlon, from Monaghan, were killed while the remaining 12 escaped across the border where they were later arrested.

Among the men involved in the attack were Se�?n Garland, the current president of the Workers' Party, and the late Daith�? O'Connell. The Sunday Tribune contacted Garland several times but he did not respond to the paper's interview requests.

Recalling the night her brother Fergal O'Hanlon was killed, Padraig�?n U�? Mhurchadha, told the Sunday Tribune: "This is a very emotional time for our family as I have many memories of the time.

"Fergal was a lovely brother and a great son to our parents. He was brought up in a republican home and we knew he was active. I recall vividly us all saying goodbye to him when he left on 27 December. On new year's night we were all sitting around the radio when the news came on that two people had been killed in Brookeborough. My mother sensed immediately that Fergal had been killed.

"Fergal's and Se�?n South's deaths seemed to capture the imagination of the whole country. I remember the press treatment of their deaths was very fair at the time and thousands attended their funerals.

"In military terms the Brookeborough raid was not a success as lives were lost but politically it had success as four TDs were elected the following March on an abstentionist ticket."

The Brookeborough raid occurred before the 1969 IRA split and Republican Sinn Féin president Ruair�? س Br�?daigh looks back on the raid and the 1956-1962 as key moments in 20th-century Irish republicanism.

He told the Sunday Tribune, "It was a phase in the republican struggle that kept faith with the past and handed on a tradition to the future.

"The new younger and officer corps came from it as the veterans of the 1940s left the scene so it was a bridge between two eras of Irish republicanism."

Dr Ruan O'Donnell, a leading Irish historian from the University of Limerick said, "Operation Harvest lacked the personnel to carry it out in the absence of concerted popular support on the ground.

"It was important as it obliged a restructuring within the republican movement which reemphasised political, broad front engagement at the expense of militarism.

"Sinn Féin, a weak adjunct of the IRA in the 1950s, became a more important and dynamic element of the republican movement after 1962."

Meanwhile, Cecil Noble, a former UUP councillor who remembers the events of new year's day in 1957, is angry that republicans are commemorating the attack.

"When the republicans put up a memorial to the two men that were killed a few years ago there was an outcry among unionists in Fermanagh.

"I remember that day 50 years ago and I think that these things should be forgotten about.

The problem with Irish people is that they never forget their history. There will always be somebody out there who wants to keep these things boiling."

On new year's day Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams will address the 50th-anniversary commemoration for South and O'Hanlon at Altawark, where a monument commemorating the two fatalities was unveiled a number of years ago.

THE PATRIOT GAME by Dominic Behan

Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing, For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.

It banishes fear with the speed of a flame, And it makes us all part of the patriot game.

My name is O'Hanlon, and I've just turned sixteen.

My home is in Monaghan, and where I was weaned I learned all my life cruel England's to blame, So now I am part of the patriot game.

They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair, His wounds from the battle all bleeding and bare.

His "ne body twisted, all battered and lame They soon made me part of the patriot game.

It's nearly two years since I wandered away With the local battalion of the bold IRA, For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same To play out my part in the patriot game.

This island of ours now has long been half free.

Six counties are under John Bull's tyranny.

So we gave up our boyhood to drill and to train To play our own part in the Patriot game.

I don't mind a bit if I shoot down police They are lackeys for war never guardians of peace And yet at deserters I'm never let aim The rebels who sold out the patriot game And now as I lie here, my body all holes I think of those traitors who bargained in souls And I wish that my rifle had given the same To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game SEءN SOUTH OF GARRYOWEN by King and Costello 'Twas on a dreary New Year's Eve when the shades of night fell down A lorry load of volunteers approached a border town There were men from Dublin and from Cork, Fermanagh and Tyrone But the leader was a Limerick lad, Se�?n South of Garryowen.

And as they moved along the street up to the barrack door They scorned the danger they would meet, the fate that lay in store They were "ghting for old Ireland, to save their very own And the leader of that gallant band was South of Garryowen.

But the sergeant foiled their daring plan, he spied them through the door From the guns and all the ri"es too, a hail of death did pour And when that awful night was o'er two men lay cold as stone There was one from near the border and one from Garryowen.

No more he'll hear the seagull cry, or the murmuring Shannon's tide For he fell beneath a northern sky, brave O'Hanlon by his side He's gone to join that gallant band of Plunkett, Pierce and Tone Another martyr for old Ireland, Se�?n South of Garryowen