Report to the First Consul [Buonaparte], 16 nivôse 9 [18 January 1801] Two Irishmen called on me and submitted a memorial which they wish to present to the First Consul on behalf of the United Irishmen, having been appointed by their executive in Ireland and sent to France with the express mission of requesting, for … Read more
Robert Emmet entered Trinity College, Dublin, aged fifteen, in October 1793. One of the first books he read that year was John Locke’s Two treatises of government, a 1728 (‘5th’) edition, published by A. Betterworth, J. Pemberton and E. Symon of London. This copy was later bequeathed to Thomas Addis Emmet, Robert’s grandnephew, and the … Read more
Robert Emmet was arrested on 25 August 1803 by Dublin’s chief of police, Town Major Henry Charles Sirr. From the time of his appointment as assistant town major in 1796 until his retirement to the police magistrates’ bench in 1808, Sirr created an era of surveillance, pursuit, detection and arrest that is probably unparalleled since … Read more
Few have shown such lack of enthusiasm for appointment as a librarian as Thomas Russell! He was with Wolfe Tone in Dublin when he heard the news on 17 January 1794: ‘Find I am ele[c]ted to the librarianship at Belfast, which [Wolfe Tone] and [Whitley] Stokes have put me out of conceit of’. Russell’s radical … Read more
The rising of 1803 bore as much resemblance to what had been planned by its chief military strategist, Robert Emmet, as the rebellion of 1798 did to Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s original plans. In both instances United Irish offensive activities had been envisaged as secondary to those of a sizeable French expeditionary force. Contingencies devised by … Read more