The 23 July 2003 marks the bicentenary of Robert Emmet’s aborted Rising and execution. Immortalised by Thomas Moore’s lyrics, he was a leading icon in popular culture during most of the 19th century, as as Ruán O’Donnell reports
Robert Emmet was the premier figurehead of Irish nationalism worldwide in the 19th century. Celebrated for his leadership of the United Irishmen during the failed Rising of 23 July 1803 and his famous ‘speech from the dock’, he was a natural candidate for the republican pantheon. To the considerable kudos accruing from martyrdom in the Irish resistance tradition was added a reputation for proficiency in oratory, poetry, sculpture, design, military science and chemistry. The pathos of his exemplary death on the scaffold aged twenty-five and the decline of his fiancée Sarah Curran were immortalized by the lyrics of his childhood friend Thomas Moore
