The line ‘her beauty and her terror’ is often quoted by politicians and other public figures following natural disasters such as floods and bushfires.

During World War I, ‘My Country’ was widely published and recited, galvanising national sentiment and becoming a symbol of patriotic affection for Australia.

A federal electorate in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney and a street in the Canberra suburb of Cook are named Mackellar in honour of the writer.

In 1983 a life-size bronze sculpture of Dorothea Mackellar was erected in the NSW town of Gunnedah with a ‘talking rock’ that features a recording of Mackellar reciting ‘My Country’. The Mackellar family owned several properties in the Gunnedah area.

The recently opened Arboretum in Canberra features a sculpture of the line ‘wide brown land’ in Mackellar’s handwritten script. The sculpture measures 35 metres in length.

As well as sparking renewed debate about mining in rural Australia, the sale of the Mackellar family’s property Kurrumbede, near Gunnedah, in 2010 to the mining company Coalworks also reopened debate about whether the property was the inspiration for ‘My Country’ and what should be done to protect it.

Dorothea Mackellar did not go to school but was educated at home. She travelled extensively with her parents, becoming fluent in French, Spanish, German and Italian. She also attended lectures at the University of Sydney.

In the New Year's Day Honours of 1968, Dorothea Mackellar was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to Australian literature.

From 1898 to 1901, the Mackellar Family owned ‘Torryburn’ station on the Allyn River, near East Gresford, in the NSW Hunter region. While holidaying there as a girl, Mackellar witnessed the breaking of a drought. In later life, the poet recalled how, after the rain, the grass began to shoot across the parched, cracked soil of the paddocks and, she as watched from the verandah, the land to the horizon turned green before her eyes. 

During World War I, Dorothea Mackellar’s ‘My Country’ became a symbol of patriotic affection and was often publicly recited as an expression of heightened national sentiment.

Mackellar spent long periods of time on the family properties at Gunnedah and in the Paterson Valley, near Gresford. From 1898 to 1901, while holidaying at Torryburn, during one of the region's driest times, the family witnessed the breaking of a drought and the land turning green. Images such as these fed Mackellar’s imagination and her writing.

A wonderful poet of light and colour, towards the end of her life, Mackellar provided her own assessment of the significance of her poetry, commenting: ‘I did say more or less what I wanted to say, and that's the satisfaction.’

Already a young woman of some accomplishment when she began to write poetry in the 1900s, Mackellar long resented the tendency for Australians to refer to England as ‘home’ which actually her caused to address her most famous poem to English readers. 

In an interview in 1967, Mackellar described her reasons for writing this her most iconic verse, saying ‘...a friend was speaking to me about England...she was talking about Australia and what it didn't have, compared to England. And I began talking about what it did have that England hadn't...’

Mackellar’s inspiration for her most iconic verse came directly from her childhood experience of life on the land, and reflected the spirit of ardent nationalism which had ignited with Australian Federation in 1901.