This Day in Irish History (Emmet’s Rebellion)

July 23, 1803—Five years after the United Irishmen failed to rid the Emerald Isle of British influence, one of the uprising’s surviving diehards, Robert Emmet, spearheaded another rising that, like others before and after, led to disaster and death.

But, like a Celtic version of Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale, Emmet delivered a final statement before the court pronouncing sentence on him that reverberated with patriots long after the bungled sequence of events leading to his demise was largely forgotten.

There’s a good reason why an Irish name is attached to the proposition that whatever can go wrong will go wrong, because for years, Murphy’s Law determined the outcome of all Irish rebellions. So it was in 1803, when Emmet decided to strike a blow against the 1801 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland that had been passed in the wake of the “Year of the French” to bring the island more tightly under British rule.

Seizing Dublin Castle, the seat of British government, he believed, would set off the revolutionary spark that would destroy British rule. It was all set: post-’98 outlaws hiding in the Wicklow Hills had been alerted to expect a signal; the proclamation of the new Irish Republic had been printed.

Then everything fell apart, Murphy’s Law-style:

* One week before the event, an accidental explosion at Emmet’s arms depot set off British alarm bells about the chance for another revolt.

* As soon as the proclamation of the republic came off the presses, British authorities, knowing what to expect, seized it.

* With word of the insurrection largely squelched, Emmet ended up with only 90 men—nowhere near the 2,000 he judged he needed—to capture Dublin Castle.

* As Emmet set out to take the castle anyway, his force, armed only with pikes and blunderbusses—as close to a “pitchfork brigade” as you’re ever going to get, because their hopes of seizing firearms from captured stores rapidly evaporated—became distracted by a coach passing through the streets containing Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice. Instead of concentrating on the task at hand, they set upon the judge with their makeshift weapons, leaving him dead in the street and Emmet disgusted by their deterioration into French Revolution-style street rioters.

* The appalled Emmet went into hiding in nearby mountains, but was captured a month later. On September 20, he was hanged, drawn and quartered—the last person to receive this sentence from a British court.

Some historical figures, like George Washington, are less famous for their rhetoric than for their actions. But words can matter, in some instances, just as much. When Emmet was marched before the court to await final judgment, he delivered an address that would be quoted generations hence by Irish revolutionaries, most notably by Patrick Pearse, who revived interest in Emmet in the years leading up to the Easter Rising of 1916.

Over the years, Emmet’s words were quoted ad infinitum to bolster revolutionaries’ sagging spirits. They proved more than equal to the task: “Let no man write my epitaph… When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph be written.”

The name “Emmet” had an equally intriguing afterlife in the United States. Thomas Emmet, Robert’s brother, fled Ireland for the United States with his family. On the boat over, he became acquainted with the American inventor-artist Robert Fulton, who, noticing the artistic talent of Thomas’ daughter Elizabeth, gave her some shipboard pointers. While Thomas Emmet prospered so well in his subsequent legal practice that he became Attorney-General of New York in 1812-13, Elizabeth made use of her burgeoning artistic skills to become a noted portrait pointer, a talent passed down in one form or another to the succeeding four generations of female artists.

If Robert Emmet proved a man of mighty words, so did another descendant: the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright-biographer Robert Emmet Sherwood.