I have just checked my note to this song on the CD 'I Wish There Was No Prisons' (MTCD372), where George Spicer's version is included. Part of the note reads:

This song, under the title Trouble in Your Native Land, was written by an Irishman called Tom McGuire and popularised on the Music Hall stage by Dan Crawley (1872-1912). It is interesting to see how popular this song became with English singers, who often called it The Banks of the Nile or else The Gallant Dragoon, especially at a time when Irish emigrants to England were struggling to find accommodation ('No Irish Need Apply') and work. I don’t know whether or not the song’s popularity indicates a feeling of understanding (and sympathy?) between working class people from Ireland and England, or whether it simply suggests that sentimental songs, no matter what the subject, were highly popular in the latter half of the 19th century.