Track 1: "What's Left of the Flag" by Flogging Molly

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Walk away me boys
and by morning we'll be free
wipe that golden tear
from your mother dear
and raise what's left
of the flag for me

then the rosary beads
count them, 1-2-3
fell apart as they hit the floor
in a garb of black
we must pay respect
to the color we were born to mourn

Oscar Wilde was born in 1854  in Dublin, Ireland. By the time he graduated college he would have shed both his Irish nationality and his accent. However, the Irish cause had been dear to him at one point. His mother, Jane "Speranza" Wilde, from whom Oscar inherited his love of clothes, decadence, and skillfulness in stretching the truth (he lied about his age on multiple occasions, including his marriage certificate and on trial), wrote this poem for her two sons: "I made them indeed / Speak plain the word Country. I taught them, no doubt, / That country's a thing one should die for at need." (Ellmann, 5).


This song represents Oscar's love for his mother as well as his Irish nationality. It also talks about the influence of Roman Catholicism, which would haunt Oscar his entire life. His mother baptized him in the Catholic church as a child, and Oscar flirted with religion his entire life, never completely committing to it. He could try to act like an Englishman, and write as a Frenchman, but he would be an Irishman still, and would rise to the occasion at the call. Whatever was left of Oscar's Irish history, he would raise it high.


Ellmann, Richard. (1987). Oscar Wilde.New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Pearce, Joseph. (2000). The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde. London, England: HarperCollins.