The Wearing of the Green
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Song Sheet
Irish
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
Oh, Paddy dear and did you hear
The news that's going round?
The shamrock is by law forbid
To grow on Irish ground!
St. Patrick's Day no more we'll keep,
His color can't be seen,
For there's a bloomin' law agin'
The wearing of the green.
Chorus:
For the Wearin' o' the Green
For the Wearin' o' the Green
They're hanging men and women
For the Wearin' o' the Green
I met with Napper Tandy
And he took me by the hand,
And he said, "How's poor old Ireland
And how does she stand?"
"She's the most distressful country
That ever yet was seen;
They're hanging men and women there
For wearing of the green."
Chorus:
Then since the color we must wear
Is England's cruel red,
Sure Ireland's songs will ne'er forget
The blood that they have shed.
You may take the shamrock from your hat now,
Cast it on the sod,
But 'twill take root and flourish still,
Tho' under foot it's trod.
Chorus:
When the law can stop the blades of green
From growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summertime
Their verdue dare not show,
Then I will change the color that I
Wear in my canteen;
But 'till that day, please God, I'll stick
To wearing of the green.
Chorus:
My father loved his country
And sleeps within its breast
While I that would have died for her
Must never so be blessed
Those tears my mother shed for me
How bitter they've had been
If I had proved a traitor to
The Wearin' o' the Green
Chorus:
But if at last our colours
Should be torn from Irelands heart
Her sons with shame and sorrow
From the dear old isle will part
I've heard a whisper of a land
That lies beyond the sea
Where rich and poor stand equal
In the light of Freedom's day
Chorus:
Oh Ireland must we leave you
Driven by a tyrants hand
And seek a Mother's blessing
From a strange and distant land
Where the cruel cross of England
Shall never more be seen
And in that land we'll live and die
Still wearing Ireland's green
Chorus:
"The Wearing of the Green", in Gaelic "Caitead An Glas" is an Irish air or march in<br> 4/4 time and G Major.<br> As a march, the parts are played AB (Sweet) or AAB (O'Neill).<br> Bayard (1981) notes that (Anne Geddes) Gilchrist and Moffat have identified this air as a<br> descendent of an old Scots air called "The Tulip", a march composed by James Oswald and<br> appearing in his c. 1747 Airs for the Spring.<br> Ernest MacMillan identifies it as "Balance the Straw" from a 1759 instrumental setting.<br> The melody has been the vehicle for numerous songs, including "The Rising of the Moon".<br> The title "Wearing of the Green" first appeared on a political broadside of 1798, the<br> year of the Rebellion and a “Wearing of the Green” song was published in The Citizen in<br> 1841. However, the most famous text of the song comes from a play called Arrah-na-Pogue,<br> produced in Dublin in 1864 and New York in 1865. The stage version lyrics were rewritten by<br> Dion Boucicault (1820-1890), “to an old melody,” at the suggestion of his mother.<br> The tune itself is printed in Havety's One Hundred Irish Airs, 2nd series, (1859).<br> In Scotland the melody is used for the song "Sae Will We Yet,” an end-of-evening song.<br> The ‘wearing of the green’ refers to the outlawed green cockade worn by the Irish<br> rebels, an adaptation of the French cockade and Tree of Liberty of the 1789 revolution.<br> Redfern Mason wrote in his Song Lore of Ireland (1910):<br> "There is, in true national poetry an accent of sincerity which goes straight<br> to the heart and cannot be imitated...nowhere does it ring with a more<br> pathetic thrill than in "Wearing of the Green". The writer was a lad when<br> he first heard it sung in Boucicault's Arrah na Pogue (1865)...Because it<br> was sung in Boucicault's drama, many people have imagined that the clever<br> playwright wrote it. But nobody can claim its authorship. It is an inspired<br> street ballad, born of the sorrow and bitterness of the people."<br> It was printed in<br> O'Neill's O’ Neill’s Irish Music (1915),<br> O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903),<br> Sweet's Fifer’s Delight (1965).<br> John McCormack recorded the Dion Boucicault version in 1912 for Victor Records.<br> It was issued in the United States and England and remained in the company’s catalog<br> into the 1950's. <br>
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