To my mind this song is one of the bigger mysteries. Its history, for such a well-known song, is remarkably vague. Few dates or original sources are given, and there's virtually no information as to how it grew and developed.

I wonder if the very commonness of the song has made folklorists steer away from it? Seems to me there's a history there, waiting for someone to uncover it.

Irish singer-author Patrick Galvin rather scants the standard version described above as the "American broadside." In his Irish Songs of Resistance he says literally nothing of the song's history, but gives, in a supplement at the back without comment, the "Old Version, 1798" quoted below. Dating it to 1798 puts the song's origins squarely back in the days of the Great Rebellion. which is helpful. He gives no source.

Note too that the same tune is used by the Clancys for another '98 classic, "The Rising of the Moon." In this they take their cue from Galvin, who gives the text with the note "Air: The Wearing of the Green." (I have heard a different, minor-key tune used to "Rising of the Moon" by Richard Dyer-Bennett, but I don't know if that has any earlier validity.) And, as noted above, the tune (slightly varied) is also used for "Green Upon the Cape," which Galvin includes. Wonder what other lyrics may have been used with this grand old tune?

THE WEARING OF THE GREEN
(Old version, 1798)

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
Saying how is old Ireland? And how does she stand?
She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
They are hanging men and women there for wearing of the green!

Cho
Oh wearing of the green, oh wearing of the green,
My native land, I cannot stand for wearing of the green.

My father loved you tenderly, he lies within your breast,
While I, that would have died for you must never be so blest,
For laws, their cruel laws, have said that seas shall roll between
Old Ireland and her faithful sons who love to wear the green. CHO

I care not for the Thistle, and I care not for the Rose,
When bleak winds round us whistle neither down nor crimson shows,
But like hope to him that's friendless when no joy around is seen,
O'er our graves with love that's endless blooms our own immortal green. CHO