She is Far From the Land

DESCRIPTION: "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps." She rejects other lovers. She sings wild songs he loved about home. "He had lived for his country, for his country he died." She will join him soon.
AUTHOR: Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
EARLIEST DATE: 1846 (_Irish Melodies_ by Thomas Moore, according to Zimmermann)
KEYWORDS: grief love death nonballad patriotic
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Moore-IrishMelodies-1846, p. 80, "She Is Far from the Land" (1 text)
Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815 157, "She Is Far From the Land" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster, p. 50, "She Is Far from the Land" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Edward Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland (Boston, 1859), Vol I, pp. 332-333, "She Is Far From the Land"
Thomas Kinsella, _The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse_ (Oxford, 1989), pp. 267-268, (no title) (1 text)
Roud #V5570
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 20(142), "She Is Far From the Land" ("She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps"), J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866; also Firth b.26(319), "She Is Far From the Land"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Emmet's Farewell to His Sweetheart" (subject of Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran)
cf. "Oh! Breathe Not His Name" (subject: concealed allusions to Robert Emmet)
cf. "When He Who Adores Thee" (subject: concealed allusions to Robert Emmet)
cf. "The Man from God-Knows-Where" (subject: concealed allusions to Robert Emmet)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Island of Sorrows
NOTES [304 words]: Zimmermann p. 77 fn. 11 uses "She is far from the land" as an example of "songs [that] evoke prudently Robert Emmet's fate." - BS
If so, that gives an interesting possible dual meaning to this one. One part would refer to the many Irish exiles around the world. The other might refer to Sarah Curran, Emmet's sweetheart, who was disowned by her father for her closeness to the condemned rebel.
Moore, we should add, knew Emmet; according to Kee, p. 168, Moore was "Emmet's old friend and fellow student at Trinity." On p. 169 he reports that Emmet's girlfriend was Sarah Curran, daughter of the lawyer John Philpot Curran (1750-1817). Curran had defended the 1798 conspirators at their trials, and opposed the Act of Union -- but his daughter had gone farther, writing letters to Emmet which supported rebellion. Her father disowned her.
Boylan says of her, "CURRAN, SARAH (died c. 1808), youngest daughter of John Philpot Curran. Secretly engaged to Robert Emmet. When her father discovered this after the rising of 1803, he behaved so harshly to her that she was obliged to take refuge with friends in Cork. Here she met and married in 1805 a Captain Sturgeon. She died in England three years late. Moore's song 'She is Far From the Land' was inspired by her story."
Kee regards Moore as having "set the tone" for Emmet's legend.
For another song pertaining to Curran, see "Emmet's Farewell to His Sweetheart."
Although Moore had a tune for this, Gerry O'Beirne and Andy M. Stewart set a new melody, which Stewart recorded as "Island of Sorrows" on his album "Man in the Moon." - RBW
Moylan-TheAgeOfRevolution-1776-1815: "The subject of this song is Sarah Curran, Emmet's fiancee and daughter of John Philpot Curran, the lawyer who had defended Wolfe Tone." Hayes's notes are along the same line, but with more details. - BS
Bibliography

Boylan: Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography, second edition, St. Martin's Press, 1988
Kee: Robert Kee, The Most Distressful Country, being volume I of The Green Flag (covering the period prior to 1848), Penguin, 1972

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