"Croppies lie down" is an Orange
song dating from the time of the 1798 rebellion, its name
referring to the close-cropped hair of the rebels
(like that of the revolutionaries in France, and unlike the
powdered wigs of the British and Anglo-Irish ruling classes).
The song depicts the Catholic rebels as cowardly traitors, and
mockingly revels in their defeat by brave loyalists.
The rebels of the 1790s looked to America and France for
inspiration, given the revolutions that had recently taken
place in both countries. Their leadership came from a group
called the Society of United Irishmen, a group of Protestant
liberals in Belfast who welcomed Catholic members and
dissenters and advocated for Catholic emancipation, but whose
reform efforts were effectively blocked in the Irish
Parliament. When war broke out between Britain and France in
1793, the Society was forced underground. It made common cause
with the Catholic agrarian group called the Defenders, gained members
across Ireland (200-300,000, nearly 5% of the population), and
turned to the revolutionary goal of getting England out of
Ireland. In 1796 Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Society's leader,
traveled to France and secured promises of an invasion force.
But the Expédition d'Irlande, a fleet of ships with 14,000
seasoned French troops and heavy stocks of war matériel, could
not land at Bantry Bay in bad weather in 1796, and returned
home. Tone, who was with the force, said that "England has had
its luckiest escape since the Armada." Much smaller French
efforts were made to help the rebellion that finally took
place in 1798.
In contrast to the Shan
Van Vocht, written at about the same time, which
proclaims that "The French are in the bay, and the Orange will
decay," Croppies Lie Down ridicules the French:
Should France e'er attempt, by fraud or by guile,
Her forces to land upon Erin's green isle,
We'll show that they ne'er can make free soldiers slaves,
They shall only possess our green fields for their graves;
Our country's applauses our triumphs will crown,
Whilst with their French brothers the croppies lie down.