Kearney's songs were highly popular with the Volunteers (which later became the IRA) in the 1913–22 period. Most popular was "The Soldier's Song". Kearney penned the original English lyrics in 1907 and his friend and musical collaborator Patrick Heeney composed the music. The lyrics were published in 1912 and the music in 1916. After 1916 it replaced "God Save Ireland" as the anthem of Irish nationalists. The Irish Free State was established in 1922 and formally adopted the anthem in 1926. Subsequently, theatres and the state broadcaster began playing the anthem at the end of performances, and Kearney prepared to take legal action to demand royalties, obliging the state to acquire the copyright in 1934 for £980 (half each to Kearney and the heirs of Heeney, who had died). From the 1930s, the anthem was increasingly sung in Irish, in a translation by Liam Ó Rinn.