The Minstrel Boy - References in Film and Television

References in Film and Television

  • The song's first verse was sung by the character Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Wounded" (air date January 28, 1991). The tune is heard on several occasions during Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (usually in reference to O'Brien). It plays in the final episode "What You Leave Behind" when O'Brien is looking at his empty quarters and recalls his life aboard Deep Space 9.
  • The song is played by a lone piper preceding the cortege at the funeral of Bobby Sands in the Terry George film Some Mother's Son (1996).
  • The song is also heard in the movie The Departed, during a graduation ceremony of police cadets.
  • The song is played (in instrumental form) in the film Gettysburg as General Winfield Scott Hancock watches the Irish Brigade receive Fr. Corby's blessing prior to the battle.
  • The tune is incorporated into the score of the episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "London, May 1916".
  • A clip from this film was used in the show "Warehouse 13" episode "Secret Santa"
  • The song is used as G Troop's troop song in John Milius's TNT film, Rough Riders.
  • The song is both sung and used in Max Steiner's score in John Ford's The Informer (1935).
  • In the Sam Peckinpah film Major Dundee(1965), the song is briefly sung by Captain Tyreen (Richard Harris) as he teaches it to a young boy. It is also played instrumentally throughout the movie's soundtrack.
  • The song appears in the film Breaker Morant.
  • The melody, combined with a bell ringing effect image, was the main series title of the awarding 1965 TV series Profiles in Courage, based on the book by President John F. Kennedy, music composed by Nelson Riddle.
  • It was used as background music in the Ken Burns documentaries Lewis and Clark, The Civil War and Baseball.
  • A version of the song, performed by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros is heard during the closing credits of the film Black Hawk Down.
  • The song, including a choral version in a spiritual style forms much of the theme of the PBS documentary "For Love of Liberty: the story of America's Black Patriots" which chronicles the history of Black troops in the US military from the revolutionary period to the present.
  • The song appears in both the opening and closing credits of the Sarah Palin biography "The Undefeated" and is sung by the performer Amanda.
  • The first two lines of the song are quoted by the character Lechmere in Benjamin Britten's pacifist opera 'Owen Wingrave' (1971, commissioned for BBC TV), as he is singing the glories of war.
  • An instrumental version of the song is used as recurrent background music in the Korean television drama series Pasta.

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