Two names most intimately connected with the Irish Rebellion are surrounded by an atmosphere of sentiment and the glamour of romance, which endears their memories to their admirers at this distant date. The untoward fate of one, the unfortunate enthusiast Lord Edward Fitzgerald, commences the history of the insurrection; the last, Robert Emmett, comes to complete the story, his episode almost as an anticlimax. Both were lives of promise, miserably thrown away, and it is recognised that both these victims rebels destroying a house furniture of misapplied talents were worthy of a better fate, and capable of higher things.
Robert Emmett was the son of a respectable physician in Dublin, and was the younger brother of Thomas Adis Emmett, a gifted barrister who had been a conspicuous member of the rebel Directory in the fateful 1798. Robert Emmett was by natural gifts qualified to figure as a hero of romance, and his name is so regarded by sympathisers, even after the lapse of a century, wherein his fame has fitfully survived. He was a young man of fine talents rather than solidity of judgment, possessing uncommon eloquence, and no inconsiderable portion of courage and activity. He was not unqualified for the part he had undertaken, and for a service so pregnant with difficulty and danger his sanguine temperament was a necessary adjunct. He had quitted Ireland after the unfortunate termination of the former conspiracy, and resided in different parts of the Continent, but principally in France, till Christmas 1802, when he returned to his native country, filled with ambitious projects of an unreasonable and uncompromisingly revolutionary nature.
‘A quotation from one of his speeches, when a lad at Dublin University, proves the early political bias of his mind. After a brilliant eulogy on the French republic, he concluded with a remark sufficiently expressive:—“When a people, advancing rapidly in knowledge and power, perceive at last how far their government is lagging behind them, what then, I ask, is to be done in such a case? Why, pull the government up to the people!” The consequences of indulging in such language at such a time may be imagined—Emmett was struck off the College roll.’—Memoir of Robert Emmett.
On his arrival in Ireland he first went into a state of the most perfect obscurity at the house of a Mrs. Palmer, at Harold’s Cross, where he assumed the name of Hewitt. The nature of his mission did not admit of his remaining in this retreat longer than was necessary to mature his plans and form his connections. About the end of April, a house and premises of some extent, formerly a malt-house, and which had been long unoccupied, were taken in Marshall’s Alley, Thomas Street, sufficiently obscure to escape detection, and yet near enough to the heart of the city to effect the most desperate purposes. In this place Emmett lodged for nearly two months, with no better accommodation than a paillasse, and surrounded by from fourteen to twenty associates. A depot of arms was here formed on a large scale; muskets and other weapons were procured from time to time to a considerable amount, and a large manufacture of pikes was secretly carried on. There was a group of tailor hands employed in making rebel uniforms of green.
‘One of these dépôts was set apart for the manufacture of gunpowder and the construction of weapons. Some idea of the industry with which Emmett accumulated these implements of deadly vengeance, and his sanguine reliance upon thousands responding to the tocsin of insurrection, may be formed from the catalogue of the contents of his magazine:—It comprised forty-five pounds of cannon-powder, in bundles; eleven boxes of fine powder; one hundred bottles filled with powder, enveloped with musket-balls and covered with canvas; two hundred and forty-six hand grenades, formed of ink-bottles filled with powder and encircled with buck-shot; sixty-two thousand rounds of musket-ball cartridge; three bushels of musket-balls; a quantity of tow mixed with tar and gunpowder and other combustible matter, for throwing against woodwork, which when ignited would cause an instantaneous conflagration; sky-rockets and other signals, etc.; false beams filled with combustibles, with not less than twenty thousand pikes.
‘The conspirators occasionally pressed not only horses but men into their service, and forced the latter to work at different employments necessary for the object in view while confined in the depot. At the same time stores of arms and gunpowder were deposited at the residences of others of their accomplices in convenient stations of the city. The whole of the conspiracy had, however, been nearly overthrown and exposed by an explosion which took place in Patrick Street. By the ability of the conspirators, or the security of their adversaries, the accident was overlooked, or at least represented as unconnected with any treasonable design. Emmett once more changed the place of his concealment, apprehending the explosion would lead to untimely disclosures, removing to one of his dépôts situated in Mass Lane. “Here he strove to make, as far as possible, by increased exertions, amends for the recent loss. So restless was he, that he sought no further repose than that he derived from occasionally reclining upon a mattress, placed in the midst of the workmen, from which he could by night and day observe the progress of, and direct and animate their labours.”
EMMETT PREPARING FOR THE INSURRECTION