Ireland -- History -- Rebellion of 1798; Women -- Ireland -- Biography
We know little of her for the twenty-one years of life that still
remained to her. We learn from Madden that every year her
daughter-in-law and grand-daughter paid her a visit; and we know that up
to extreme old age she retained that strength and energy of mind, that
vigour of intellect, that passionate devotion to the husband of her
youth which had characterised her in the long ago. A letter she wrote to
the _Truth-Teller_, on the appearance of the first edition of Madden’s
_United Irishmen_ (1842) gives evidence of this.
She died in Georgetown on March 18th, 1849.
Shall the day ever come when Ireland a Nation, remembering this woman
and all she suffered for her, shall claim her remains from America, and
lay them to rest in the place where her husband lies lonely: in his
green grave in Bodenstown Churchyard?
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The Wife of Thomas Addis Emmet
JANE EMMET, _née_ PATTEN (1771-1846)[70]
“And the track of my true love’s feet is the track that my heart
would follow.”—_Old Irish Love Song._
Footnote 70:
_Authorities_: Madden’s “United Irishmen” (Third Series, Second
Edition); Dr. T. A. Emmet’s “Emmet Family.”
SO exquisitely has the story of “the Broken Heart” been told, to such
haunting strains of melodious sorrow has it been sung, that the whole
world has wept over the tragic loves of Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran,
But even in Ireland, it is rare to find anyone familiar with the romance
of Thomas Addis Emmet; and—to our shame be it told!—the heroic devotion
and self-sacrifice of his wife, Jane Emmet, which ought to be a
household tale, a constant inspiration to our womanhood, is less known
than the tale of some alien queen—Philippa or another. What’s Philippa
to us, or we to Philippa? Or why should the heroism of our own women be
forgotten, while our voices swell the chorus that praises the heroism of
the stranger?
We have already learned in our memoir of Elizabeth Emmet, that her son,
Thomas Addis, shortly after having been called to the Bar, married, in
1791, Miss Jane Patten, the twenty-year-old daughter of Rev. John
Patten, of Annerville (near Clonmel), and his wife Margaret Colville.
After Rev. Mr. Patten’s death in 1787, his widow, with her children,
Jane and John, came to live in Dublin where her brother, Mr. Colville
was a wealthy merchant, and in this city Thomas Addis Emmet met Miss
Patten. It is probable enough that the intimacy between the
families—which was very affectionate—was of longer standing; for both
the Colvilles and the Emmets were Tipperary folk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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