James Joyce mentions the song ‘She is far from the land’ in Ulysses. It appeared originally around 1810 in Volume 4 of the Irish poet Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies, using an old Irish air ‘Open the door’. Later, this new setting was provided by Frank Lambert, who was one of the most successful of ballad composers for the publisher Chappell & Co. Around 1900. Moore’s lyric was inspired by Robert Emmet, an Irish patriot hanged after leading an uprising in Dublin in 1803, and his fiancée, Sarah Curran, who subsequently died of a broken heart.
from notes by Andrew Lamb © 2002
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