The Wolfe Tones – Wearing Of The Green (Irish rebel song) 0

The Wolfe Tones (1985)

"The Wearing of the Green" is an anonymously-penned Irish street ballad dating to 1798. The context of the song is the repression around the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Wearing a shamrock in the "caubeen" (hat) was a sign of rebellion and green was the colour of the Society of the United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary organisation. During the period, displaying revolutionary insignia was made punishable by hanging.

O Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that's going round?
The Shamrock is for bid, by laws, to grow on Irish ground!
No more St. Patrick's day we'll keep his color last be seen;
For, there's a bloody law agin the Wearing of the Green!

Oh! I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he says: How is Poor Ould Ireland, and does she stand?
She's the most distressed Country that ever I have seen:
For, they are hanging men and women for the Wearing of the Green!

And since the color we must wear, is England's cruel red,
Ould Ireland's sons will ne'er forget the blood that they have shed..
Then take the Shamrock from your hat, and cast it on the sod:
It will take root, and flourish still, tho' under foot 'tis trod.

When the law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow..
And when the leaves, in Summer time, their verdure does not show..
Then, I will change the color I wear in my cabbeen:
But, till that day, plaze God! I'll stick to the Wearing of the Green!

But if, at last, her colors should be torn from Ireland's heart
Her sons, with shame and sorrow, from the dear old soil will part;
I've heard whispers of a Country that lies far beyond sea,
Where rich and poor stand equal, in the light of Freedom's day!

O Erin! must we leave you driven by the tyrant's hand!
Must we ask a Mother's blessing, in a strange but happy land,
Where the cruel Cross of England's thralldom never to be seen:
But where, thank God! we'll live and die, still Wearing of the Green!