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You are > Home > Robert Emmet certainly combined his pure oral worth with real intellectual power
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Thursday, September 18, 2003
Robert Emmet certainly combined his pure oral worth with real intellectual power
By: Finbarr Slattery
TWO hundred years ago this month, Robert Emmet was beheaded on Thomas Street, Dublin.
He laid down his life for his country to become one of our greatest heroes and my column today is a salute to that man.
Robert Emmet was born on 4 March 1778 most likely in Dublin. But the possibility that he first saw the light of day in Kerry cannot be completely ruled out.
Tom Barrington is his wonderful book "Discovering Kerry" states that there is at Ballydowney, a pleasant, and recently restored Georgian house, which was the home of a respected 18th century smuggler in Killarney, James Mason, whose daughter Elizabeth was the mother of Robert Emmet.
JJ King in his admirable "History of County Kerry" states: "Robert Emmet’s mother was a Miss Mason of Ballydowney, and it is probable he was born there."
Whether he was born in Kerry or not Robert Emmet has, certainly, strong Kerry connections.
Robert Emmet was in the mould of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his day. He was full of zeal, enthusiasm and energy. He also possessed a wonderful power of eloquence. Added to these was his ardent attachment to the girl in his life, Sarah Curran.
Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, and a contemporary of Emmet celebrated the sad story of their love affair in his song beginning "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps." Sarah died in Sicily soon after Robert Emmet was executed.
Robert Emmet, then, had all the ingredients to be an Irish hero and that he certainly was and still is. In all of Irish history there is, probably, no name which touches the Irish heart more than his youth and eloquence putting him ahead of Kerry’s own Daniel O’Connell and Brian Boru. Like JFK, he had everything going for him. He was rich. His father was a highly successful physician. He was handsome and could have had a life of blissful happiness for himself if he wished.
Instead he chose the tough, hard slog of fighting for his country’s freedom. Emmet was probably inspired to do this by his brother, Thomas Addis, who was 16 years his senior and was one of the leaders of the 1798 rebellion. Be that as it may, young Robert soon showed his feelings.
Shortly after he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, to study science he made his views known. He quickly made a name for himself in the college’s historical society. In the debates there he soon showed his worth as an orator and his fluent and sharp remarks made him the orator of the patriotic party in a short time. He was so captivating that the college authorities, in an effort to curb his influence, often sent one of their ablest members to take him on. They proved no match for the young Lion.
Thomas Moore, who was there at the time, describes his oratory thus: Simple in all his habits and with a repose of look and manner indicating but little movement within, it was only when the spring was touched that set his feelings, and through them his intellect in motion, that he at all rose above the level of ordinary men.
"No two individuals could be much more unlike to each other than was the same youth to himself before rising to speak and after; the brow that had appeared inanimate and almost drooping, at once elevated itself to all the consciousness of power, and the whole countenance and figure of the speaker assuming a change as of one suddenly inspired."
James Dillon in his heyday was about the only orator of modern times to match such eloquence. Moore also stated: "I have heard little since that appeared to me of a loftier, or what is a far more rare quality in Irish eloquence, purer character." That was praise indeed. Was it any wonder then that Robert Emmet and several of his political friends, spellbound, no doubt by his eloquence, were expelled from the College? This happened by February 1798. TCD has made amends since then - his statue now adorns the place.
Shortly after this, probably mainly to avoid arrest, he went to the continent. Here, he met Napoleon and the great man led him to believe that the invasion of England was at hand.
Writing in the special Robert Emmet Bicentenary issue of History Ireland (Published in Autumn 2003) Sylvie Kleinman, Lecturer at Dublin City University states that Malachy Delaney (who visited France with Emmet) and especially Robert Emmet ‘were more than competent to ‘act as credible and formidable emissaries for Ireland in their representations to France’.
Full of high hope, Emmet returned to Dublin in October 1802 and started preparing for another rising. He devoted his own fortune of £3,000 to buying muskets and manufacturing pikes.
The rising, which took place in 1803, turned out to be a farce. R.B. McDowell in "The Course of Irish History", (edited by TW moody and FX Martin) states that it "ended in a scuffle in the streets of Dublin on the night of July 23 1803."
Emmet had the right idea – a surprise attack right at the top. He kept his intentions secret from all but a few followers. Unfortunately there was an explosion in the arms store in Dublin - he was experimenting with rockets – that made him put forward the date of the rising from November to July and instead of a disciplined army, Emmet saw a mob marching through the streets.
Their only victim was an elderly judge, Lord Kilwarden, who was dragged from his carriage and murdered. In despair, Emmet gave orders to stop the rising and left Dublin.
The government had been taken completely by surprise. "We had a most providential escape", one of them wrote.
Robert Emmet could almost certainly have made good his escape but for being the true gentleman that he was. He didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to the girl he loved.
He went to Sarah Curranís house at Rathfarnham and was captured. The correspondence between them had become known to her father – the famous orator John Philpot Curran – who passed on the information to the attorney general.
Robert Emmet was tried for high treason and condemned to death on September 19, 1803. He was beheaded on the following day.
Just before receiving sentence Emmet delivered his famous speech from the dock. It is a speech that cannot fail to thrill the reader for its noble and patriotic eloquence. Robert Emmet concluded his famous speech as follows:
"I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world, it is the charity of its silence.
Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.
"Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done".
M.F. Cusack (the nun of Kenmare) in her "History of the Irish Nation" states: Emmet’s career was brief and would have probably have been almost forgotten, but for his famous speech at the moment of receiving his sentence, and for the history of his love and her devoted attachment to his memory".
Now, here is a quote by the poet Thomas Moore who witnessed those turbulent times. "Were I," he wrote in his Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, "to number the men above all I have ever known who appeared to me to combine in the greatest degree pure oral worth with intellectual power, I should, have amongst the highest of the few placed Robert Emmet".
W.B. Yeats numbered Emmet as ‘foremost amongst (Ireland’s) Saints of Nationality’. Padraig Pearse celebrates his "Historic Faith and the splendour of death’, while Liam Mellows told his mother in 1913 that he intended to be ‘another Robert Emmet.’ Robert Emmet may have been bedevilled by failure. He still triumphed over them all and is the epitome of the true Irish hero.
It was nice to see this great Irishman remembered on the Bicentenary of his death. To mark the occasion the following books were published:
_ ‘Robert Emmet: The Making of a legend’ by Marianne Elliott, Profile Books, 288pp. €30.
_ ‘Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798’ by Ruan O’Donnell, Irish Academic Press, 273pp, €30.
_ ‘Robert Emmett and the Rising of 1803’, by Ruan O’Donnell, Irish Academic Press, 353pp, €30.
_ ‘Remember Emmett: Images of the Life and Legacy of Robert Emmett’ by Ruan O’Donnell, Wordwell, 174pp, €15.
_ ‘Robert Emmet: A Life" by Patrick Geoghegan, Gill & MacMillan, 350 pp, €30. History Ireland had a special Robert Emmet issue (Wordwell, 60pp, €5) and our National Library has a special exhibition of the great man on display. So there is plenty material to follow up on if I have aroused your interest.
For now it is just a case of farewell to Robert Emmett – a salute to the man who did his country proud and gave his life for the cause of freedom.
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