Life
1778-1803; b. [110; now 124], St. Stephen’s Green, West, Dublin [occ.
Glover’s Lane]; son of Viceroy’s physician, Dr. Robert Emmet,
of Molesworth St., Dublin; ed. at Edwards’s school, St. Bride’s;
and TCD; Emmet removed his name from the college books when [John Fitzgibbon]
Lord Clare, then Chancellor of the University, made his visitation to
search for United Irishmen in April 1798; warrant for his arrest, 1798,
not enforced; visited his brother Thomas Addis Emmet [vars. Fort William;
on the continent], and proceeded to Spain, Holland and Switzerland, then
to Paris; joined in Paris by his brother; discussed Irish independence
with Tallyrand; returned to Dublin, 1802, intending to synchronise a rising
with Napoleon’s invasion of Great Britain; set up a series of five
depots, one in Ptrick Street, nr. St. Patrick’s Cathedral; the rising,
precipitated by explosion in arms factory, 16 July 1803, occurred on July
23rd 1803 and failed because Michael Dwyer, Thomas Russell and others
did not join with their contingents; read out a proclamation: ‘we
war not against property; we are against no religious sect; we war not
against past opinions or prejudices; we war against English dominion’;
advanced wearing his uniform of green coat, white breeches, and cocked
hat with a small contingent of some hundred undisciplined men to take
Dublin Castle, but dispersed on hearing of defensive preparations; fled
to Dublin Mts. [var. Wicklow hills] after the killing of Lord Kilwarden
[Arthur Wolfe], a Lord Chief Justice and a relative of Wolfe Tone, with
his nephew, but not before rescuing Miss Wolfe from the crowd, by report;
captured by Major Sirr, 25 Aug., in hiding at Harold’s Cross, where
he came to meet Sarah Curran; prosecuted by Wm. Conyngham Plunket, whom
Emmet called ‘that viper my father warmed in his bosom’; defended
by Leonard McNally, with Peter Burrowes, Curran abstaining from his defence
by reason of his compromised position; tried by jury for high treason
before Lord Norbury for high and sentence to be hanged, drawn and quartered,
19th Sept.; made stirring speech from the dock, to become a a classic
of Irish political oratory; executed on 20th Sept. outside St. Catherine’s
Church in Thomas St.; reputedly declaring, ‘My Friends, I die in
peace, and with a sentiment of universal love and kindness to all men’;
decapitated while heart still beating; bur. secretly in an unknown grave,
probably at the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham [now Irish Museum of Modern Art]; Emmet’s
dock speech was taken dowe in court by McNally, son of the lawyer, writer
and government agent; printed in Dublin Evening Post (20 &
22 Sept. 1803); copied by The Times and in the Morning Post
(27th Sept. 1803); an unadorned version printed by William Ridgeway,
a lawyer and for the defence and a printer in his own right, was published
shortly after, being reprinted by him with accounts of other trials of
Aug., Sept., and Oct. 1803; a similar version printed in Walker’s Hibernian
Magazine (Sept. 1803); Emmet was dubbed ‘the Unfortunate Mr Emmet’
by H. B. Code, editor of The Warden, whose contemporary report
on events as Insurrection of 23rd July, 1803 (1803) is regarded
as a travesty by D. J. O’Donoghue and others; a version issued at
the request ‘of his friends’ in 1807 bears Moore’s verse
‘‘Oh, Blame not the Bard’’, downplaying the supposed
condemnation of France in the speech; Sarah Curran was expelled from her
father’s house and sent to Cork; married a nephew of the
Marquis of Rockingham in 1805, and died of T.B. two years after, at a
Mediterranean naval station; Anne Devlin, Emmet’s devoted servant,
dg. of a man imprisoned as a United Irishman, was arrested and tortured
by the government. CAB DNB PI JMC DIB DIW DIH DIL RAF OCIL FDA
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Criticism
R. R. Madden, Life and Times of Robert Emmet (Dublin: Duffy 1847)
343p. [infra].
Michael James Whitty, Robert Emmet, I: The Cause of His Rebellion; II: The cause of Its Failure (London: Longmans, Green, 1870).
R. R. Madden, Life [and Times] of Robert Emmet (Dublin 1847), and Do. [another edn.] (Glasgow, London: Washbourne 1844; Glasgow: Cameron, Ferguson & Co. 1902).
R. R. Madden, The Life and Times of Robert Emmet (Paris 1850) [biog. in French ed.].
R.R. Madden, The United Irishmen: Their Lives and Times (3rd series, 2nd edn., London 1860).
D. J. O’Donoghue, Life of Robert Emmet (Dublin: James Duffy & Co. 1902), x, 190pp. [BML].
J. J. Reynolds, Footprints of Emmet (Dublin 1903).
Stephen Gwynn, Robert Emmet (1909).
F. S. Bourke, The Rebellion of 1803, An Essay in Bibliography (Three Candles, 1933).
Norman Vance, ‘Text and Tradition: Robert Emmet’s Speech from the Dock’, in Studies (1982).
C. McLeod, Robert Emmet [Famous Irish Lives] (Dublin: [Gill] 1936).
Helen Landreth, The Pursuit of Robert Emmet (Dublin: Browne & Nolan [Richview Press] 1949), 427pp. [infra].
Léon Ó Broin, The Unfortunate Mr. Robert Emmet (Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds; London; Burns Oates & Washbourne 1958).
Fraser Drew, ‘Ghosts of Kilmainham’, in Éire-Ireland, 4, 3 (Autumn 1969), pp.110-13 [infra].
Mitchell R. Sharpe, ‘Robert Emmet and the Development of the War Rocket’, Éire-Ireland, 5, 4 (Winter 1970), pp.3-8.
Anthony Cronin, ‘The Bold Robert Emmet’, in An Irish Eye (Dingle: Brandon 1985) [q.p.].
Norman Vance, ‘Text and Tradition: Robert Emmet’s Speech from the Dock’, Studies, 71 (Summer 1981), pp185-91.
Timothy Webb, ‘Coleridge and Robert Emmet’, in Irish Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2000), pp.304-24 [infra].
Ruan O’Donnell, Robert Emmet (Cork UP 2001), 128pp. See also Irish Book Lover, Vols, 2, 3, 4.
Sean McMahon, Robert Emmet (Cork: Mercier Press 2001).
Patrick M. Geoghegan, Robert Emmet: A Life (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 2002), 304pp.
Marianne Elliott, Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend (Profile Books 2003), 292pp.
Colm Tóibín, ‘What the epaulets were for [ Emmet and the historians’ [review-essay], in the Dublin Review, 12 (Autumn 2003), 107-27 [infra].
Sean Ua Chearnaigh, Roibeard Emmet again 1803: a Chomráidhe agus a Chéastúnaigh (Coiscéim 2004).
Thomas Moore, in Moore’s Irish Melodies, Boston: Oliver Ditson Co. 1893, rev. edn., p.80.
S. T. Coleridge, in Earl Leslie Griggs, ed., Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols., Clarendon Press, 1956-71, Vol. 2, pp.998-1,005; quoted in Timothy Webb, ‘Coleridge and Robert Emmet’, in Irish Studies Review, 8, 3 (2000, pp.304-24; p.315.
John T. Campion, in Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature, 1904, Vols. 1-2, p.463.
W. E. H. Lecky, The History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1892), Vol. V, p.466.
Denis Murphy, LLD, MRIA, A Short History of Ireland for Schools (Dublin: Fallon & Co. n.d.), p.146.
Patrick Pearse, Political Writings, 1922, pp.70-71.
James Joyce, in “Fenianism”, 1907 [Piccolo del Sera, Trieste]; rep. in Critical Writings, 1966, p.188
Stephen Gwynn, Robert Emmet: A Historical Romance (1909), see ‘Reviews’, in The Irish Book Lover , Vol. I, No. 5, Dec. 1909, 58.
P. W. Joyce, A Child’s History of Ireland (Dublin: M.. H. Gill & Son; London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1910), pp.477-78.
Seamus MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland, by Seamus MacManus, assisted by several Irish scholars (NY: Irish Publishing Co. [2nd edn.] 1921).
M. J. MacManus, Irish Cavalcade 1550-1850 (Macmillan 1939), p.220-21.
Helen Landreth, The Pursuit of Robert Emmet (Browne &Nolan, 1949) [Richview Press], 427pp.
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984).
Cathal G. Ó Hainle, ‘“The Inalienable Right of Trifles”: Tradition and Modernity in Gaelic Writing Since the Revival’, in Éire-Ireland (Winter 1984).
Joep Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael, 1986, p.435.
Norman Vance, commenting on Moore’s “Oh, Breathe Not His Name”, in Irish Literature: A Social History, Basil Blackwell 1990, p.106.
Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and Irish Popular Theatre (1991), comments on the melodrama, Robert Emmet (Chicago 1884), characterising it as the earliest of the political-melodrama genre in popular Irish drama.
Robert Southey, "Occasional Pieces, XIII: Written Immediately after Reading the Speech of Robert Emmet, on his trial and conviction for high treason, Sept. 1803", in Poetical Works [1 vol.] (London: Longman, Green & Co. 1871), pp.140-41.
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Notes
Justin MacCarthy, (Irish Literature, 1904), selects Last
Speech and Lines Written on Arbor Hill Burying-Ground [of 1798 Insurgents], ‘No rising column marks the spot/Where many a victim lies/But oh!
the blood which here has streamed/To Heaven for justice cries. &c.’
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Stephen Gwynn, Robert Emmet (Macmillan 1909) [with maps of Dublin 1803], a narrative with Quigley, Russell, Hamilton, Dwyer, all accurately drawn, and prominent place given to the romance of Emmet and Sarah Curran [Brown]. Other fictions listed under Emmet in Brown’s appendix are Mathias Bodkin, True Man and Traitor (Duffy 1910); Robert Thynne, Ravensdale (1873), Unionist viewpoint; George Gilbert [pseud. of Miss Arthur], The Island of Sorrow (Longman 1903), portrait not lacking in sympathy though the theatrical and inconsiderate character of his aims insisted on [Brown]’.
Frank O’Connor, ed., Book of Ireland (London: Collins 1979), gives extract from the Dock Speech.
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, 2 vols (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980): Vol. 1, p.135, cites poems on and to Emmet collected by Madden (Literary Remains of the United Irishmen, p.148), including those by Moore, Atkins (in Pilgrims of Erin), Emmet’s sister Mrs Holmes and his niece Mrs. Conyngham, and also an anonymous lament: ‘The joy of life lies here/Robert A Roon/All that my soul held dear/Robert A Roon.’ (Madden, p.250-51; also in Life and Times, 1847).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: p.934, gives Emmet’s dock speech, in Ridgway’s version, and discusses the circumstances in which it was composed and spoken. ‘The version given is free of the rounded periods characteristic of the better-known late nineteenth-century versions’ [ed.] The biog. note speaks of ‘the collapse of his attempted coup d’etat’ [959]. FDA2 has remarks at 77, 267, 277, 292, 339, 683, 694, 799, 833, 834, 841, 854, 932n, 973, 974, 990, 1016n. [See also under C. G. Duffy, infra.]
Kevin Rockett, et al., eds, Cinema & Ireland (1988), Bold Emmet, Ireland’s Martyr (Olcott, 1914); when show at the Rotunda the authorities had with withdrawn claiming it was interfering with recruiting. Bosco Hogan played Emmet in the film, Anne Devlin (1984). [See page index, and Devlin, RX].
Charles G. Duffy, ‘Thomas Moore’ (The Nation 1842), writes: ‘he was in the junior and senior Historical Societies with Emmett [sic] - heard his eloquence, and possessed his intimacy, if not his friendship. Emmett’s mind must have greatly influenced him. He “used sometimes”, said Moore, “sit by me”, when playing the Irish airs from Bunting; “and I remember one day his starting up as from a reverie when I had just finished playing that spirited tune called The Red Fox, and exclaiming, “Oh, that I were at the head of twenty thousand men marching to that air!”’ (Quoted in Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1991, Vol. 1, p.1,252.)
W. H. Maxwell’s Erin Go Bra, or Irish Life Pictures, 2 vols. (London: R Bentley 1859) contains a story devoted to Robert Emmet. (See Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980, Vol. 1, p.136.)
Emmet’s birthplace at 110 St. Stephen’s Green (later 124), was established by David A. Quaid in a pamphlet [brochure] of 1902 Dublin 1902. (See C. L. Falkiner, Papers Relating to Ireland, c.p.40.) Note further: Adjacent to York St., the actual house was destroyed when houses on Glover’s Lane collapsed.
Emmet’s dock speech and its waiving of an patriotic epitaph (‘Let no man write my epitaph [...] ) taken as the basis for the name of the Emmet Monument Association (1857), being the primitive form of the IRB; also parodied in James Joyce’s version of the execution of the patriot in Ulysses.
R. R. Madden writes, ‘A death mask of Emmet taken by George Petrie, who also made a sketch at the trial, was sold on Liffey St. and bought by T. A. Emmet’; ‘the other representation of the cast taken after death by Petrie of the notorious Jemmy O’Brien I have had placed in juxtaposition with that of Robert Emmet to show the striking contrast of the two countenances.’ (Robert Emmet, 1840.)
Watercolour portrait after sketch done at his trial, anon., presented to NGI by HB Boyle, C.B.; also Robert Emmet portrayed by Fred O’Donovan in Lennox Robinson’s The Dreamers, painted by James Sleator (1999-1949), belonging to the Abbey Company.
Emmet wrote to Sarah’s brother from Kilmainham Prison, ‘I have injured the happiness of a sister that you love [...] Oh Richard! I have no excuse to offer, but that I meant the reverse; I intended as much happiness for Sarah as the most ardent lover could have given her. I never did tell you how much I idolised her.’ (See “Remembering Robert Emmet” website.)
Patrick Maher, one of those executed by the British judicial administration in ireland during 1919-21, spoke these words in the scaffold: ‘My soul goes to god at seven o’clock and my body goes to Balgally when Ireland shall be free.’ Maher, with others incl. Kevin Barry, was reinterred in accordance with his wishes in Nov. 2001.
Commemoration (Dublin, 20 Sept. 2003): “The Republic of Letters”, a recital of poetry, prose and music was given in Kilmainham Gaol at the bi-centenary of the Emmet’s execution. The event was compèred by Kevin Whelan with poems of Florence Wilson, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Thomas Kinsella and Medbh McGuckian read by Stephen Rea, music played by Neil Martin (West Ocean String Quartet). A version of of Emmet’s Speech from the Dock was also read.
There is a curious volume of pamphlets - now very rare - by St. John Mason, on Trevor, the prison doctor at Kilmainham, in whose burial place at St. Peter’s Church, there was found recently in a prison coffin the headless skeleton of a young man supposed to be Emmet.’ (‘The Collins Collection’ [being a report on the library collection of James Collins], in The Irish Book Lover, June-July 1917, Vol. VIII, Nos. 11-12; p.131.)
UUC Library holds Robert Emmet: The insurrection of July 1803 (Belfast: HMSO. 1976) [facs.]; Nellie Maher, Robert Emmet: his two loves [PR6063.A25R6]; Léon Ó Broin, The Unfortunate Mr. Robert Emmet (Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds; London; Burns Oates & Washbourne 1958); Helen Landreth, The Pursuit of Robert Emmet (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1949); Caesar Litton Falkiner, Essays relating to Ireland: Biographical, Historical and Topographical (London; NY: Longmans, Green & Co 1909); Stephen Gwynn, Robert Emmet: A Historical Romance (London: Macmillan 1909); Louise Imogen Guiney, Robert Emmet: A Surve of his Rebellion and of His Romance (London: Nutt 1904); Richard Robert Madden, The Life and Times of Robert Emmet (Glasgow: Cameron, Ferguson & Co. 1902; Glasgow; London: Washbourne 1844); Michael James Whitty, Robert Emmet, I: The Cause of His Rebellion; II: The cause of Its Failure (London: Longmans, Green, 1870); John Finegan, Anne Devlin: Patriot and Heroine: Her Own Story of Her Association with Robert Emmet (Dublin: Elo Publications 1992); Geraldine Hume, Robert Emmet, The Insurrection of 1803 (Belfast: HMSO/PRONI 1976); Micheál Mac Liammóir, I must be Talking to My Friends: Ireland Seen through the Eyes of Her Writers (London: Argo, 1966). audio-disc.
Working Class Movt. Library ( 51 The Crescent, Salford, U.K. M5 4W) holds Richard R. Madden, The Life and Times of Robert Emmet (Dublin: James Duffy 1846); William Ridgeway, A Report of the Trial of Robert Emmet (1803), in “Scully’s Irish Catholics’ Advice”; Thomas Davis, ed., The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. John Philpot Curran, With Memoir (Dublin: James Duffy 1845); William Henry Curran, Life of Rt. Hon. John Philpot Curran, 2 vols. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable 1822); Charles Phillips, Curran and His Contemporaries (Edinburgh: Wm Blackwood 1851), all as part of the library of T. A. Jackson (1867-1955) [See online.].
Sundry Catalogues: BELFAST CENTRAL LIBRARY holds Trial of Robert Emmet for High Treason (1803) N4717; see also extensive listings in the library’s subject index. HYLAND BOOKS (Oct. 1995), lists The Trial of Edward Kearney for High Treason, Dublin 1803, 47pp. EMERALD ISLE BOOKS (1995) lists Emmet’s Insurrection of 1803, The Opinion of an Impartial Observer, concerning the late Transactions in Ireland [2nd edn.] (Dublin: John Parry 1803), with abstract of trial of John Donnelly on 10 Sept. 1803 appended.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)