Robert Emmet

The year 2003 marks the bicentenary of the short-lived rebellion led by the flamboyant and enigmatic revolutionary Robert Emmet and his subsequent trial and execution. A product of his extraordinary times, he grew up against a backdrop of Irish radicalism and international revolution. Emmet's progression into radical politics was not inevitable but, nonetheless, a natural, explicable and consistent step for someone of his background. His martyrdom elevated him to iconic status for those who accepted his famous challenge to vindicate his revolutionary ideals.

Robert Emmet (1778-1803) was one of the most romantic of all Irish revolutionaries. Born in Dublin, Emmet was the youngest son of the state physician. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was a leading member of the College Historical Society until his expulsion for radical activity in 1798. Prevented from pursuing a profession, he visited the continent where he discussed plans for liberating Ireland with Napoleon and Tallyrand. He returned to Ireland in 1802 and soon became involved in a conspiracy for a new rebellion.

This book reveals for the first time the complex and ingenious plans that Emmet devised for the rebellion. His youthful idealism and military talent proved insufficient, however, and his attempt to seize Dublin on 23 July 1803 was a dramatic failure. Captured soon after, he won an unlikely victory with his extraordinary speech from the dock that is considered to be one of the greatest courtroom orations in history. He died bravely on the scaffold the next day.

This book draws on new archival material from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and the United States and is the first modern study of Robert Emmet in almost fifty years.

Throughout the 20th century, Robert Emmet was appropriated to suit the personal and political aims of prominent Irish figures - from Eamon De Valera to Bobby Sands. The Emmet debate raged on. Was he a heroic failure or a brilliant strategist, betrayed by government informers? Or was the 1803 rising all along a government conspiracy designed to erase the memory of the 1798 rebellion? And in 1922 arose the most sensitive question of all. The Irish Free State came into being. 'Could Emmet's epitaph now be written?' This book unravels the myth. The author shows it to have all the elements of a classic story: a well-born young man struck down in the prime of his life; a tragic love affair; conspiracy and betrayal; an unmarked grave. She shows, for the first time, how mythmakers and patriots created one of the most powerful legends in modern history.

For nearly 200 years, since his death on the scaffold in Thomas Street, Dublin, on 20 September 1803, Robert Emmet has been the 'darling of Erin' - the archetypal young martyr for Irish freedom. Because of the romantic story of his fatal love for Sarah Curran, he has always had the reputation of being a brave but foolhardy young man whose brief insurrection was vain and whose life was needlessly sacrificed for love. Yet, as this book shows, he was far from being a reckless dreamer. His preparations for the rising which he led show him to have been a meticulous planner, a master of security, an ingenious inventor of effective weapons for urban warfare and the deviser of a revolutionary plan that, but for sheer bad luck, might well have succeeded.

This book looks at the Great Rebellion of 1798. Emmet joined the United Irishmen in December 1796 and graduated from their cells in Trinity College to the leadership tier in the capital during the violent events of 1798. This formative experience, generally ignored by historians, was of the utmost importance for the planning and execution of the second effort, The Rising of 1803. Moreover, Emmet's dealings with Continental exiles and allies between 1800 and 1802, not least Napoleon, have hitherto received scant attention. Although the pre-eminent Dublin-based conspirator in 1803, Emmet belonged to a coterie of long-term activists of similar stature which included Thomas Russell, Philip Long, Felix Rourke, William Dowdall and others who escaped detection. The Rising and Emmet's role in seditious affairs can best be understood by studying the evolution of the United Irish structures, leadership and strategy during the Rebellion period covered in this book.

The Rising of 1803, of which Emmet was the main strategist, was the first attempt of the republican United Irishmen to sever the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland by armed force and was regarded with the utmost seriousness in Dublin and London. Emmet, arrested on 25 August 1803 and executed on 20 September, passed immediately into the ranks of Irish republican heroes. His stoicism, idealism and revolutionary acumen were all admired by contemporaries, even if the appealing lyrics of Thomas Moore represented him as a romantic figure. Emmet's stirring speech from the dock, however, ensured his iconic status with the physical force tradition whose leaders acknowledged him in 1867 during the Fenian Rising and, more importantly, during the Rising of Easter 1916. For this reason Emmet's name will be associated with the final resolution of the National Question in Ireland which the current Peace Process may yet address.

This book is intended as a portrait of Robert Emmet, from his earliest years to his execution and enduring legacy, including his time as a student activist in 1798, his graduation as a full-blown revolutionary leader in 1803 and the famous trial. The book is illustrated with over 250 images and documents, many of which have never before been published and which have been culled mainly from the National Library, the National Gallery, the National Archives, Kilmainham Gaol and the National Museum, as well as other sources in Ireland and America. The book's author is Ireland's leading authority on Robert Emmet, and this book is a perfect compliment to his definitive two-volume biography detailed above.