M, of Anambaba [John McGarvie] (1829): The exile of Erin on the Plains of Emu [O! Farewell my country - my kindred - my lover] (Tune: The exile of Erin); Koen van Stade (tenor), Neal Peres Da Costa (pianoforte); Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, 27 February 2022

Abstract

This lovely song, published in the ‘Sydney Gazette’ in 1829, is a parody of the Irish nationalist song, ‘Erin go Bragh’ (‘The exile of erin’), to be sung to its tune. It ventriloquises the laments of a colonial exile - a convict or political prisoner - who finds himself ‘enchained’ to the hard land on the Emu Plains, cruelly separated from his motherland, mother, and betrothed. The empathetic author was neither convict nor Irish himself, but the Glasgow-born Presbyterian cleric John McGarvie. Words (first verse only): O! Farewell my country - my kindred - my lover; / Each morning and evening is sacred to you, / While I toil the long day, without shelter or cover, / And fell the tall gums, the black-butted and blue. / Full often I think of and talk of thee, Erin - / Thy heath-covered mountains are fresh in my view, / Thy glens, lakes, and rivers, Loch-Con and Kilkerran, / While chained to the soil on the Plains of Emu. View McGarvie’s full words, as first published, and the music, here: https://www.sydney.edu.au/paradisec/australharmony/checklist1826-1830.php#1829-05-Exile-of-Erin-on-the-Plains-of-Emu