Sarah Curran

Sarah Curran (married name Sturgeon; 1782 – 5 May 1808) was an Irish musician, poet, belletrist, composer and embroiderer, known for being the fiancée of the executed Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet. Curren's relationship with Emmet, along with her premature death, galvanised her as a subject of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism. During this period Curran was sent to live with the family of The Rev Thomas Crawford in Lismore, County Waterford, and there is no evidence that she had any further contact with her mother during her lifetime. Keeping their relationship and subsequent engagement secret, the couple corresponded with the aid of Anne Devlin, a revolutionary who worked ostensibly as Emmet's housekeeper. Angela Byrne posits Curran's father rejection of her, despite his own republican sympathies, likely stemmed from the potential harm that her relationship with Emmet could have on his legal and political career. Curran lived at Woodhill for the next two years, where she became close friends with Penrose's daughters Anne (1771–1827) and Elizabeth "Bess" Penrose.

Marriage and death At Woodhill, Curran met her future husband Henry Sturgeon, a British Captain in the Royal Staff Corps. Sturgeon reportedly never recovered from the death of his wife and son, and died in 1814 during the Peninsular War. and the long poem Lalla Rookh.

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

The road leading past Saint Enda's Park in Rathfarnham is called Sarah Curran Avenue. The ruins of The Priory still stand across the road from the park, in The Hermitage housing estate.

In her family's home town of Newmarket, County Cork, there is a statue of Sarah Curran standing across the road from the graveyard where she is buried.

Newmarket also have a local anthem called Up Up Newmarket, written by Fr. Norris. Its air is that of God Save Ireland. Sarah Curran is mentioned within the song lyrics.......

Boston boasts of Bunker Hill; brave men fought at Gettysville. Newmarket too, has honours like the rest. Here ’t was Curran first drew breath; after Emmet’s tragic death They laid his sweetheart Sarah here to rest.

Amelia Clotilda Jennings wrote a poem about her called "Sarah Curran's Song."