Republican News · Thursday 26 June 2003

Emmet bicentennial marked

1803 Proclamation reissued

This year marks the bicentenary of Robert Emmet's 1803 Rebellion and the Robert Emmet Association, under the title of Emmet 200, has organised a special programme to commemorate the event. Representatives of the association will be at the Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown this Sunday selling reproductions of Emmet's Proclamation, the document that was the precursor of the 1916 Proclamation.

Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1778, into an era of political upheaval for Ireland. He joined the Society of United Irishmen in late 1796, an illegal revolutionary organisation pledged to establish an independent Irish republic, with French military assistance. He took part in the 1798 rebellion before moving to France to enlist French aid for the Irish cause.

In 1803, along with William Dowdall, Philip Long and other leading republicans, he planned another rebellion to coincide with a French invasion of Ireland.

A series of unforeseen mishaps meant a premature rising took place on 23 July. Emmet was arrested in Dublin in late August after a protracted manhunt and was executed in front of Saint Catherine's Church on Thomas Street in Dublin on 20 September 1803.

Emmet 200 has worked with community groups and historical societies from all over the country, and is planning peak periods of activity in July and September. A wide range of events will commemorate aspects of Emmet's life and the principle characters of his times, including Anne Devlin, Sarah Curran, Thomas Russell and Thomas Moore.

As part of these celebrations, the 1803 Proclamation is being re-issued. The Proclamation is the last communication from the Society of United Irishmen and constitutes the final manifesto of their aims and visions for a sovereign Irish republic. For reasons of security, its publication was delayed until the day of the rising, when some 10,000 copies were secretly printed.

When the rising collapsed, almost all copies were seized in the printing room by the military. Thus, a crucial historical document has remained relatively unknown.

The Proclamation, an interim constitution as well as a call to arms, is remarkably modern in terms of constitutional law, and precedes the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

The Proclamation can be purchased from The Robert Emmet Association, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, for the sum of § 12/$12 (including postage and packaging), by cheque, postal order or money order.

The Robert Emmet Association can be joined by sending the sum of § 20/$20 (individual),

§ 30/$30 (family), § 50/$50 (corporate) or §12/$12 (unwaged), to the above mentioned address.

The society is also grateful for contributions, all of which will go towards financing the Emmet 200 Programme of Events.