The copyright for our National Anthem, ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’, is due to run out in December 2012. The situation was highlighted last week by Dublin TD, Maureen O’Sullivan, who discovered in a Dáil question to the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, that the State is due to lose the rights to the National Anthem. The composer of the Anthem lyric, Peadar Kearney, died in December 1942 and so the copyright expires 70 years after his death.
