Degsy,This is the text from Zimmermann's 'Songs of Irish Rebellion - bit longer than the one I'm used to.
I have added the note we did for Tom Lenihan's version on 'Around the Hills of Clare because it includes an interesting (to me) explanation of the 'Geneva' reference.
"Sorry for being so long winded"
Don't apologise, it's one of the rules of membership.
Jim Carroll


THE CROPPY BOY (I)
(1798)
TEXT A: Broadside printed by Haly, Cork; in T.C.D. (White coll.).

It was early, early in the spring
When small birds tune and thrushes sing
Changing their notes from tree to tree,
And the song they sang was old Ireland free.

It was early, early last Tuesday night,
The Yeomen cavalry gave me a fright,
To my misfortune and sad downfall
I was taken prisoner by Lord Cornwall.

It was to the guard-house I then was led,
And in his parlour I was tried,
My sentence passed and my courage low
To New Geneva I was forced to go.

As I was going by my father's door,
My brother William stood on the floor,
My aged father stood at the door,
And my tender mother her hair she tore.

As I was going through Wexford street
My own first cousin I there did meet,
My own first cousin did me betray
And for one guinea swore my life away.

As I was going up Croppy Hill
Who could blame me if I cried my fill?
I looked behind and I looked before,
My tender mother I could see no more.

My sister Mary heard the express,
She ran downstairs in her morning dress,
One hundred guineas she would lay down
To see me liberated in Wexford town.

I chose the black and I chose the blue,
I forsook the pink and the orange too,
But I did forsake them and did them deny
And I'll wear the green, like a Croppy Boy.

Farewell, father, and mother too,
And, sister Mary, I have but you;
As for my brother, he's all alone,
He's pointing pikes on the grinding stone.

It was in Geneva this young man died,
And in Geneva his body lies.
All good Christians that are standing by
Pray the lord have mercy on the Croppy Boy.


The term Croppy is popularly believed to refer to the custom, followed by participants of the 1798 rebellion, of wearing their hair cut short to show support for the French Revolution. However, poet and playwright Patrick Galvin put forward a number of other, equally convincing explanations, which included the practice of punishing convicted felons by cutting off the tops of their ears, and a form of torture applied to rebels known as 'pitch cap'. He suggested that a true explanation probably lay in a combination of these.
New Geneva was a military barracks near the village of Passage, Co Waterford, which was used as a prison and torture-house dur¬ing the rebellion. The name derives from an abortive project some fifteen years earlier, to build a city there for emigre intellectuals and watchmakers from Geneva.
Ref: Irish Songs of Resistance, Patrick Galvin, Pub. Workers Music Association, 1956
Other recordings: Mrs Brigid Tunney; Where The Linnets Sing; C.C.E. cassette CL44