Graham has been away doing things over the Festival season, but I finally saw him this evening, and asked about the song.  It turns out that it was inspired by an elegiac poem by the 19th century Russian poet Mikhael Liamontov (sp), which in English would be called The Warrior's Grave, but does not directly quote from it.  The Kerry of the title is just a name plucked from the air, and has no particular connection to Ireland or anywhere else; Graham rather suspects that the name was in his mind because Kerry Packer, the Australian cricket entrepreneur, was the subject of a lot of news coverage at the time he wrote it.