An Irish ballad from 1798.
Words adapted by Dion Boucicault.
Music: anonymous.
Some history taken from Popular Irish Songs (Dover book): The sheet music tells us this is a ballad (lyric) from 1798. The lyrics were adapted by Irish-born playwright Dion Boucicault for his play Arrah Na Pogue. It was sung in that play by the character Shaun the Post. The music was first published in 1845. This sheet music was originally published by Chapell & Co., London in 1865. The copy used here was published by S. T. Gordon in New York without a date.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Oh! Paddy, dear, and did you hear
The news that’s goin’ round
The Shamrock is forbid by law
To grow on Irish ground
Saint Patrick’s day no more we’ll keep
His color can’t be seen
For there’s a bloody law agin’
The Wearin’ o’ the Green
I met with Napper Tandy
And he tuk me by the hand
And he said, “How’s poor ould Ireland
And how does she stand?”
Chorus
She’s the most distressful country
That ever you have seen
They’re hanging men and women there
For “Wearin’ o’ the Green”
- Then since the color we must wear
Is England’s cruel red
Sure Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget
The blood that they have shed
You may take the Shamrock from your hut
And cast it on the sod
But ’twill take root and flourish still
‘Though 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 dare not show
Chorus
Then I will change the color
I wear in my corbeen
But ’till that day, please God
I’ll stick to “Wearin’ o’ the Green”
- But if at last our color should be
Torn from Ireland’s heart
Her sons with shame and sorrow
From the dear old soil will part
I’ve heard whisper of a country that lies
Far beyant the say
Where rich and poor, stand equal
In the light of freedom’s day
Oh, Erin must we lave you
Driven by the tyrant’s hand?
Must we ask a mother’s welcome
From a strange but happier land?
Chorus
Where the cruel cross of England’s thraldom
Never shall be seen
And where, thank God, we’ll live and die
Still “Wearin’ o’ the Green”
Sung here by Fred Feild: