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?
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.
[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?