by Dion Boucicault (1820-1890)

O Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that going round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
St. Patrick's Day no more we'll keep, his colours can't be seen,
For there's a bloody law against 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 counterie that ever yet was seen,
And they're hanging men and women for the wearing of the green.

Then since the colour 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 a shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
It will take root and flourish there though underfoot it's trod.
When law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer-time their verdure dare not show,
Then will I change the colour that I wear in my caubeen
But 'till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearing of the green.

But if at last our colour should be torn from Ireland's heart,
Our sons with shame and sorrow from this 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.
O Erin, must we leave you driven by a tyrant's hand?
Must we ask a mother's blessing from a strange and distant land?
Where the cruel cross of England shall nevermore be seen,
And where, please God, we'll live and die still wearing of the green!

The wearing of green on Saint Patrick's Day began as a symbol of resistance to British rule, and the law that forbade the growing of shamrocks. The British began executing people found wearing green, as traitors against the crown. Dion Boucicault, the Dublin playwrite who wrote the poem, found that he had to leave the country after word of his poem spread, and so did James Napper Tandy, a Dublin shopkeeper and rebel. The poem was from Boucicault's play Arrah na Pogue (Gaelic for Exchange of Kisses). The tune to the song has been traced back to James Oswald, a Scottish musician, which is the same tune for the song The Orange and the Green and The Rising of the Moon.