Alright then...
at the risk of re-kindling the Mudcat Green-Orange Wars, I did find some info on an Irish variant of Yellow Rose. It's called 'The Union Cruiser', and appears on an album by Houl Yer Whisht called "On Boyne's Red Shore". The date shown for it is "circa 1912". It seems that many American folk tunes were adapted into the Unionist Song Canon with new lyrics, another example being "Sweet Betsy from Pike". If anyone has the lyrics to Union Cruiser, I'd love to see them.
Odd that this was performed at an Irish Bar in Tulsa Oklahoma in the same set with "A Nation Once Again".