Robert Emmet: enigmatic revolutionary
Historian RUÁN O'DONNELL assesses the real significance of one of Ireland's most iconic and misunderstood
national heroes, the United Irishman Robert Emmet, who was executed 200 years ago in the wake of the failure of
the 1803 Rising
JULY 2003 marks the bicentenary of the rising with which Robert Emmet is widely associated. Emmet's personal
fame, fanned by his rousing `speech from the dock', has ensured a lasting place in the folk memory of Ireland and he
was unquestionably the premier nationalist hero figure of the 19th Century.
A corollary of this ascendancy, however, has been the eclipsing of many important United Irishmen who fought and
died in 1803, not to mention those who escaped detection.
As the series of United Irish commemorations since 1991 draws to a close later this year, it is perhaps appropriate to
consider the position of Emmet.
Emmet remains something of an enigma 200 years after his execution in Dublin for high treason. His claim to
prominence in the complex historiography of Ireland rests in the first instance from his leadership of the failed rising
of 23 July 1803.
This attempt to remove Ireland from the United Kingdom by force of arms was far more serious than the government
admitted. Persistent calls for a parliamentary enquiry were strenuously resisted as this would have revealed that
the rising had surprised the Dublin Castle regime and exposed the weakness of British security. Britain was then in the
grip of an invasion scare as the interminable war against France showed no signs of favourable resolution.
The rising, therefore, undermined the Act of Union which, from 1 January 1801, had incorporated Ireland into the
UK. Emmet's role in re-cementing the United Irish-French alliance had not been anticipated and was poorly understood
at the time of his death in September 1803.
Emmet's father was the State Physician of Ireland, and, ironically, the man responsible for the health of King
George III in the unlikely event of a royal visit to Dublin.
The Emmets were wealthy and the future revolutionary graduated with ease from the socially elite academies of the
capital, where he was born in 1778, to Trinity College, aged 15. Robert Emmet's youth coincided with the rise of the
reform movement in Ireland, when pro-American `patriotism' gripped his family.
By December 1796, a French invasion fleet lay off Cork and Emmet was a United Irishman pledged to establish an
independent Irish republic with their assistance.
His elder brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, was a member of the organisation's executive directory from 1797 but had
played a key role in shaping its ideology from its inception in six years previously.
Although poorly documented, the younger Emmet's seditious activities in Trinity resulted in de facto expulsion in
April 1798 but he remained in situ when the `Great Rebellion' erupted the following month.
What is known of Emmet's actions in 1798 points to his close workings with the rump leadership built around Lord
Edward Fitzgerald's highly influential military committee. This coterie was, for all intents and purposes, the Dublin
based headquarters of the United Irishmen. Its members included Philip Long, surgeon Thomas Wright, Walter Cox
and others who connected the conspiracies of the United Irishmen in the mid-1790s to the rising of 1803.
Robert Emmet advanced to the executive directory in January 1799, by which time several of the original incumbents
had been executed and many others jailed. Consequently, the August 1800 arrival of an emissary warning of
concern in Paris as to the commitment of the United Irishmen disposed Emmet to accompany Malachy Delaney on a
mission to brief Napoleon Bonaparte.
He first travelled to Fort George in Scotland to meet the high-ranking United Irishmen interned there before sailing
from Yarmouth to Hamburg. General PFC Augureau received the fiery Emmet/Delaney petition and forwarded it to
Bonaparte.
Arrangements were made to receive the Irish plenipotentiaries in Paris. Foreign Minister Tallyrand introduced them
to the staff officers drawing up plans for an Irish invasion and Emmet later met Napoleon.
Peace overtures from Britain, however, temporarily stalled these preparations and from March 1802 the treaty
signed at Amiens postponed French assistance. Thus thwarted, Emmet waited for the resumption of war by touring
centres of Irish emitters on the continent.
He returned to Dublin in October 1802 and assumed the position of chief military strategist of the United Irishmen.
Associates arrived secretly from France and England to reactivate dormant cadres ahead of the predicted resumption
of the Anglo-French War during the spring.
Cooperation was initially envisaged with British-based republicans led by Colonel Edward Marcus Despard and this
had been discussed in Paris and London in talks attended by Philip Long and William Dowdall.
y chance of simultaneous strikes was quashed by Despard's arrest in November 1802, although Dowdall and
other militants based in Britain realigned with Emmet.
The conspirators hired numerous premises in Dublin, where war material was manufactured and stored.
Sophisticated improvised ordnance such as rockets and mines were to be used against the garrison of the capital during
the critical mobilisation phase.
This surprise onslaught was to be seconded by an influx of rebels from counties Kildare, Wicklow and Meath.
Emmet believed that capturing or isolating the executive would gravely hinder its ability to repel a large-scale French
invasion in the provinces.
Supporting uprisings were intended to assist the advance of the French in what was essentially a more efficient
reworking of the strategy of 1798.
The majority of United Irish veterans in contact with Emmet's circle had undertaken to fight alongside the French,
or without foreign assistance, if provided with modern weaponry. Failure to deliver either the French or muskets,
therefore, was the fatal flow of the rising of 1803.
This was not intentional, as the hand of the leadership was forced by the accidental destruction of the Patrick Street
depot, when loose powder ignited on 16 July 1803. Fearing that all the crucial dumps were in danger of discovery,
Emmet unwisely backed those who argued for an immediate insurrection in the hope that the French would sail to
their aid without delay.
The date was fixed for 23 July with no provision for cancellation and insufficient time to acknowledge the concerns
of regional leaders. Thomas Russell, James Hope, William Hamilton and other senior long standing radicals went to
Ulster to warn their allies, while Dublin residents such as Miles Byrne and Arthur Devlin primed their fellow Leinster
men.
Their reception was decidedly uneven and exceptionally so when the moment of truth arrived. It must be presumed
that the whole effort would have been cancelled had Emmet realised sufficient forces to capture Belfast, Downpatrick
and Ballymena would not be fielded on the 23rd.
The first wave of attacks in Dublin was entrusted to cells of heavily-armed men who gathering in private houses
close to their objectives. The Castle, Island Bridge artillery barracks, the Pigeon House and other complexes were earmarked
for assault. These sudden strikes were to be assisted by around 2,000 auxiliaries hidden in Costigan's distillery
on Thomas Street.
The reserve consisted of thousands of rank and file followers from Kildare and Dublin who were told to mass in
Thomas Street to await final instructions at 6pm. A series of ill-disciplined attacks on army officers, magistrates and
loyalists, however, threatened to alert the government in the early evening.
Remarkably, misunderstandings between the civil and military command in the capital left Dublin more vulnerable
than anyone realised. No troops were deployed. Nevertheless, by 9pm Emmet decided to dismiss rebel units blocking
the suburban roads and launched a solitary signal rocket to countermand his previous orders to rise.
The vast majority melted away unchallenged. Emmet then hastily read extracts from the Proclamation of the
Provisional Government to ensure that those who had already turned out would be treated as political prisoners if captured.
He then headed a feint on the Castle with a view to bringing his exposed junior associates into the Dublin mountains.
The veteran groups were deliberately not deployed and in their stead were low-level activists, unfamiliar with
Emmet's rank and authority.
He and the senior officers present very quickly abandoned Thomas Street for Rathfarnham and the mountains
beyond.
Several hundred organised rebels, however, refused to disperse without a fight and confronted companies of the 21st
regiment in three linked and bloody skirmishes. Soldiers inflicted far more casualties than they sustained but, nonetheless,
retreated to barracks where they remained until the danger had passed.
The rising of 1803 petered out in the capital long before the garrison flooded onto the streets to restore order. Even
then, the military response was chaotic and undertaken without specific orders from CIC lieutenant-general, Henry
Edward Fox. Rebel movements occurred in several counties, most notably Kildare (where two villages were captured),
Antrim and Down but very little of the potential of the United Irishmen was manifested in 1803.
Stunned by the post-Union strength of the United Irishmen, the government shouldered the political embarrassment
and considerable expense of remilitarising Ireland. Contrary to the ostensible objective of Union, the country remained
(and to a degree remains in the North) a garrisoned colonial entity rather than an equal member of the United
Kingdom.
Thomas Russell was one of the more prominent fatalities in the round of judicial executions which followed, but
over 30 men perished in the treason trails of the Special Commissions.
Emmet, captured in Harold's Cross on 25 August, refused to make terms and was executed in Thomas Street on 20
September.
Thousands of his comrades then languished in the jails, provosts and prison tenders of the 32 Counties, where many
were held until the spring of 1806 when the more liberal incoming government of Charles James Fox restored habeas
corpus.
Emmet was already a hero-martyr and his demand to be vindicated by the sole means of Ireland taking its place
`amongst the nations of the Earth' has resonated with periodic vigour ever since. His name, for this reason alone, will
be associated with the final resolution of the national question in Ireland.
• Professor Ruán O'Donnell is a lecturer at the University of Limerick and the official historian of the Robert Emmet
Association. He is also a member of the organising committee of the Desmond Greaves Summer School. His two-volume
biographical study of Emmet was published by Irish Academic Press on 17 July:
• Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798, 28.40 paperback
In July, he launched another book, Remember Emmet: images of the life and legacy of Robert Emmet, 15 paperback.
• The Robert Emmet Association/ Emmet 200 is promoting a major programme of commemorative, cultural and historical
events throughout 2003. For details visit the Robert Emmet Association website at http://homepage.eircom.
net/~emmet200/ or write to Emmet 200, Pearse Family Home, 27 Pearse St, Dublin 2 Ireland or email
emmet200@eircom.net