"Robert Emmet - San Francisco, CA" Waymark

Long Description:
"Emmet was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1778. His father served as surgeon to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and to members of the British Royal Family on their visits to Ireland. Despite his privileged position in Irish society Emmet, like many of his contemporaries, was attracted to revolutionary republican politics.

He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he joined the patriotic society, the Society of United Irishmen who had initially campaigned for parliamentary reform and an end to religious discrimination against Catholics (though Emmet and many United Irishmen were Protestants). However, when the United Irishmen were banned following the British declaration of war on Revolutionary France in 1793, the organisation was forced underground and now aimed after full Irish independence, preparing for insurrection with French aid. Robert Emmet's brother Thomas Addis Emmet was a senior member of the United Irishmen and had to flee for France to escape prosecution for treason. The rebellion of 1798 was crushed but Emmet and others sought exile in France, joining the groups of emigre revolutionaries in Paris.

In 1802, during a brief lull in the Napoleonic Wars, Emmet joined an Irish delegation to Napoleon asking for support. However the delegation returned to Ireland without having succeeded in gaining Napoleon's backing.

When European conflict was renewed in May 1803, Emmet returned to Ireland and together with other revolutionaries such as Thomas Russell and James Hope, prepared to launch a new rebellion. Emmet began to manufacture weapons and explosives at a number of premises in Dublin and even innovated a folding pike which could be concealed under a cloak, being fitted with a hinge. Unlike in 1798, the preparations for the uprising were successfully concealed, but a premature explosion at one of Emmet's arms depots killed a man and forced Emmet to bring forward the date of the rising before the authorities' suspicions were aroused.

Emmet was unable to secure the help of Michael Dwyer's Wicklow rebels and many Kildare rebels who had arrived turned back due to the scarcity of firearms they had been promised but the rising went ahead in Dublin on the evening of July 23, 1803. Failing to seize Dublin Castle, which was lightly defended, the rising amounted to a large-scale riot in the Thomas Street area. The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, chief prosecutor of William Orr in 1797, but also the judge who granted habeas corpus to Wolfe Tone in 1798, was dragged from his carriage and hacked to death. Emmet personally witnessed a dragoon being pulled from his horse and piked to death, the sight of which prompted him to call off the rising to avoid further bloodshed." (visit link)

URL of the statue: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   12/24/2008 saopaulo1 visited it