The cover, depicting a white shirt bloodied by a wound to the heart under the rising moon was designed by Louis le Brocquy.

He picked out "O Donnell Aboo," "Rising of the Moon," and "Kelly the Boy from Killane" as the best numbers on the album, which offered, in his words, "a capsule history of the Irish struggle for freedom.

The first track, "O Donnell Aboo" (an apostrophe was not initially included in the title name) with harmonica accompaniment, is the only song to have been re-released from this version.

The album (with the original "O Donnell Aboo" only) was once more released with Come Fill Your Glass with Us in 2009 on a single CD, entitled Irish Songs of Drinking and Rebellion.

The 1956 track and rest of the 1959 record also appears on the 2012 double CD, Raise a Glass to the Sounds of...The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem.