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Green, White and Gold
The song Green, White and Gold is quite popular in Northern Ireland, despite its unknown origins. Given the names mentioned the song dates back to the 1980's. By then the colours of the tricolour are well described in the Bunreacht na hÉireann, or Constitution of the Republic of Ireland, as green, white and orange. This makes you wonder why the song changed them in green, white and gold.
Maybe the songwriter wanted to create a nostalgic atmosphere. Between the Easter Rising and the Civil War people were confused, because the colours green and gold of the Green Flag were strongly associated with Ireland and the tricolour was relatively unknown. Nowadays flag shops in the United States of America still contend occasionally with customers who refuse to buy the Green, White and Orange bunting because that's not the real thing.
The second option is that the writer deliberately crippled the symbolism of the correct colours, where the green stripe symbolises the native Catholic Irish and Anglo-Norman population, the orange the Scottish and English Protestant settlers and the white represents the peace between the two groups.
Last, but most certainly not least, is the banal yet plausible possibility that the author couldn't find a in the English language rhyming with orange.
Green, White and Gold
| Title: Green, White and Gold |
| Author unknown |
| Recorded by: Bogside Rogues and The Irish Brigade |
| Category: Republican Song and The Troubles |
Copyright Statement |
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
Give me the Green, White, and Gold every time.
Give me the three-leaved shamrock of Ireland,
A land I love that is so divine.
Send the English back where they came from,
To Hell
Give us our country back again.
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
To make our land a nation once again.
Side by side, our heroes died,
Answering Ireland's only call.
All through the years, blood, sweat & tears,
They fought from Cork to Donegal.
Although they're gone, we struggle on,
For Ireland united and free.
So don't give in, for we must win
For a land of peace and liberty.
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
Give me the Green, White, and Gold every time.
Give me the three-leaved shamrock of Ireland,
A land I love that is so divine.
Send the English back where they came from,
To Hell
Give us our country back again.
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
To make our land a nation once again.
James Connolly, Cathal Brugha,
Pearse and the brave Wolfe Tone,
Sean McNellis, Bobby Sands,
And Sean South from Garryowen.
Armagh, and Derry, Belfast City,
They still struggle to be free
So Irishmen, unite again,
To make a land of peace and liberty.
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
Give me the Green, White, and Gold every time.
Give me the three-leaved shamrock of Ireland,
A land I love that is so divine.
Send the English back where they came from,
To Hell
Give us our country back again.
Give me the Irish Republican Army,
To make our land a nation once again.