About this Event
For over 200 years, since his death on the scaffold in Thomas Street, Dublin, on 20 September 1803, Robert Emmet has been ‘the darling of Erin’ – the archetypal young martyr for Irish freedom. Because of the romantic story of his fatal love for Sarah Curran, he has had the reputation of being a brave but foolhardy young man whose brief insurrection was vain and whose life was needlessly sacrificed for love.
Yet as Cairns talk will demonstrate, Emmet was far from being a reckless dreamer. His preparations for the rising which he had led show him to have been a meticulous planner, a master of security, an ingenious inventor of effective weapons for urban warfare and the deviser of a revolutionary plan that, but for sheer bad luck, might well have succeeded.
He was tried and charged with treason, and it was at his trial that he gave his famous ‘speech from the dock’, in which he proclaimed that he would only accept for his epitaph to be written, “when Ireland takes her place among the nations of the Earth”. Emmet’s speech was regarded as so well-spoken, and so passionate, that it is still used as an example of fine public speaking centuries after his death. Emmet was a great inspiration to Patrick Pearse in particular, and to the other leaders of the 1916 Rising.
Event venue & nearby stays
Grace's Irish Sports Bar, 16 Candleriggs, Glasgow, United Kingdom
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