Wearing of the Green (Cover) by Seth Staton Watkins

Wearing of the Green (Cover) by Seth Staton Watkins

LINKS: https://linktr.ee/Sethswatkinsmusic

Stream my cover of "The Parting Glass" here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/set...

I'm back! I was sick for the first few weeks of the new year and didn't have the energy or the voice to make content, but I am hoping to get back on a regular schedule.

"The Wearing of the Green" is a traditional Irish street ballad lamenting the repression of supporters of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the Society of United Irishmen who had been inspired by the French revolution a decade prior. It is sung to an old Irish melody, and many versions of the lyric exist, the best-known by Dion Boucicault which proclaims "they are hanging men and women for the wearing of the green".

The revolutionary Society of United Irishmen adopted green as its color, and supporters wore green-colored garments, ribbons, etc.

Lyrics:
Oh! Paddy, dear, now did you hear
The news that's going round,
The shamrock is by law forbid
To grow on Irish ground.
Saint Patrick's Day no more we'll keep
His color can't be seen
For there hangin' men and women for
The wearing of 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 you have seen,
They're hanging men and women for
For wearing of the green.

2. Then since the color we must wear
Is England's cruel red
Sure Ireland's sons will n'er forget
The blood that they have shed.
You may take the shamrock from your hat
And cast it on the sod,
But 'twill take root and flourish still
Tho' underfoot 'tis trod.

3. But if at last our color should
Be torn from Ireland's heart,
Her sons with shame and sorrow
From the dear old sod will part.
I've heard a whisper of a country
That lies beyond the sea,
Where rich and poor stand equal
In the light of freedom's day.

Oh, Erin! Must we leave you,
Driven by the tyrant's hand?
Must we ask a mother's welcome
From a strange but happy land?
Where the cruel cross of England
shall never more be seen
And in that land we'll live and die
for the wearing of the green.

For the wearing of the green
For the wearing of the green
They're hangin' men and women for
the wearing of the green