Mexico And Ireland Honor St. Patricks Brigade San Patricios

If you like history its amazing what you can learn from stampcollecting...In 1997 Ireland Scott 1085 and Mexico Scott 2049 issued stamps..i wish I had copies to show..honoring the St Patricks Brigade /San Patricios ...Irish immigrants who because of severe discrimination religious and otherwise...fought on the Mexican side during the war with Mexico. The San Patricios always fought hard because the United States considered them traitors even though many were not U.S. citizens...some were U.S. army deserters..but the U.S. Army in this case did not discriminate and would hang any of them they caught. Anyway Mexico has never forgotten them and has many monuments in their honor. Ireland honored them with a joint issue stamp with Mexico. Theres quite a bit about them on Google if you are interested.

One of the popular songs the St Patricks Brigade would sing was Green grow the rushes O .
Which some people say is how the word Gringo Came about the Mexicans would hear the Irish singing it and the first 2 words would sound like Gringo.
Here is a video of the song The guy playing the pipes is a old child hood friend that I use to swap stamps with back in the day, I was talking to him a year ago when the group was on the north America tour and he still collects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90bE4VvJBTE