From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
- (poetic) a fatherland, ancestral homeland
- 1844 George Jones, Tecumseh and the prophet of the West: an historical Israel-Indian tragedy (Longman's: London) Act II, Scene I, p.41:
- The Anglo-Saxon! The White-man forgets
- The ancient chronicles of his Sire-land!
- 1846 James Clarence Mangan "The Lovely Land (On a Landscape Painted by M......)":
- Shame to me, my own, my sire-land,
- Not to know thy soil and skies!
- Shame, that through Maclise's eyes
- I first see thee, Ireland!
- 1849 Herman Melville Mardi: and A Voyage Thither Vol. II; Chapter LVII: "They Hearken Unto A Voice From The Gods":
- had your population been pressed and packed, like that of your old sire-land Dominora.
- 1853 James Henry Notes of a Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the First Six Books of the Eneis (Dresden: Meinhold) Book IV, p.175:
- [...] then briefly thus addresses Barce,
- Sicheus' nurse, for in old sire-land lay
- Her own nurse, a black cinder [...]
- 1902 Michael F. Howley "The Flag of Newfoundland":
- Hail the pink, the white, the green,
- Our patriot flag long may it stand
- Our Sirelands twine their emblems trine
- To form the flag of Newfoundland.
- 1912 Peadar Kearney "The Soldier's Song" Irish Freedom No.23, September 1912:
- Sworn to be free. No more our ancient sireland
- Shall shelter the despot or the slave.
