Lovers’ letters almost ruin family

She is far from the land, where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her, sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying!

Thomas Moore’s song was written about Sarah Curran, the girl who was secretly engaged to Robert Emmett, the leader of the ill-fated attempt at rebellion in 1803. She was also the inspiration behind his poem, Oh Breathe Not His Name.
The daughter of a prominent lawyer, she met Emmett through her brother, a fellow student of his in Trinity College. Their liaison had to be kept secret because her father did not approve of Emmett.
John Philpot Curran was born in Cork and studied at Trinity and London. A lawyer, he also became a member of the Irish Parliament where he opposed the Union and was in favour of Catholic Emancipation. He stoutly defended members of the United Irishmen including the Sheares brothers and Wolfe Tone. After the Union, he left politics and the Bar but was later appointed Master of the Rolls. Back in London he became friends with Moore and Byron. In later years, Karl Marx recommended that he be studied as an example of a defender of the rights of the ordinary citizen.
When Emmett was planning for his rising he was a regular visitor to the Curran household. His friendship with fellow student, Richard Curran, was the reason but John Curran did not welcome him. Almost all the communications between himself and Sarah was conducted by letter and those letters very nearly caused the downfall of the young woman and her family.
When Emmett’s rising collapsed he was arrested and held in Kilmainham Jail. On September 8, he wrote another letter to Sarah. Addressed to “Miss Sarah Curran, The Priory, Rathfarnham” he gave it to a prison warden named George Dunne. He trusted Dunne to deliver the letter but instead he handed it over to the authorities.
The following morning, soldiers surrounded the Curran home and began to search the house. When they first arrived Sarah’s sister, Amelia, ran upstairs and managed to get all of Emmett’s letters. She burned them while the soldiers were still searching downstairs. The family was saved when nothing could be found.
John Curran was furious with Sarah, not only for her involvement with Emmett but with endangering his career and the lives of the family. He disowned her and ordered her out of the house. She took refuge with friends in Cork. Emmett was found guilty and was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered.
In Cork, Sarah met Captain Robert Sturgess. He proposed to her and they married two years later in 1805. She never forgot Emmett and it was her undying love for him that inspired Moore’s poem. That poem ensured she would be forever remembered.
Sarah and Sturgess moved to Sicily where she gave birth to a child who died in infancy. Her stay in Sicily was short. She contacted consumption and died at the young age of 26. Her body was brought back to Ireland and buried where her father was born in Newmarket, Cork.
Sarah Curran, secret lover of Robert Emmett and inspiration for two of Moore’s melodies, died in Sicily on May 5, 1808 – 203 years ago this week.