The Wearing of the Green

"The Wearing of the Green" is an Irish street ballad lamenting the repression of supporters of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It is to an old Irish air, and many versions of the lyric exist, the best-known being by Dion Boucicault. The song proclaims that "they are hanging men and women for the wearing of the green".

The revolutionary Society of United Irishmen adopted green as its colour, and supporters wore green-coloured garments, ribbons, or cockades. In some versions, the "green" being worn is shamrock rather than fabric.

Many versions of the lyric exist. The general format is that the narrator is a rebel who has left Ireland for exile and meets a public figure, who asks for news from Ireland, and is told that those wearing green are being persecuted.

Halliday Sparling's Irish Minstrelsy (1888) includes the anonymous "Green upon the Cape", dated to 1798. This longer poem describes the narrator's journey into exile before reaching the elements common to later versions. The narrator is a croppy from Belfast who arrives in Paris and is questioned by "Boney" (Napoleon Bonaparte).

In an 1802 version published in Dundalk entitled "Green on my Cape", it is Robert Emmet who meets the narrator, in Brest. Versions from the 1840s and 1850s feature Napoleon.

The best-known version is by Dion Boucicault, adapted for his 1864 play Arragh na Pogue, or the Wicklow Wedding, set in County Wicklow during the 1798 rebellion. In the second verse, Boucicault's version recounts an encounter between the singer and Napper Tandy, an Irish rebel leader exiled in France. Boucicault claimed to have based his version on a half-remembered Dublin street ballad. His addition of the third and last verses is in notable contrast to the middle verse in advocating emigration to America rather than staying in defiance. Boucicault himself fled to New York after leaving his wife for a young actress.

Henry Grattan Curran (1800–76), son of John Philpot Curran, wrote a version of his own, and claimed the original was written in County Tipperary.Wellington Guernsey's version was published in 1866.

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