Compact Irish History S.
2 total works
Robert Emmet has for nearly 200 years, since his death on the scaffold in Thomas Street, Dublin on 20th September 1803, been "the darling of Erin", the archetypal young martyr for Irish freedom. Because of the romantic story of his fatal love for Sarah Curran, his reputation has never been able to shake from it the cloying image of a brave but foolhardy young man whose brief insurrection was vain and whose life was needlessly sacrificed for love. Yet as this compact biography shows, he was far from being a reckless dreamer. His preparations for his rising show him to be a meticulous planner, a master of security, an ingenious inventor of effective weapons for urban warfare and the deviser of a revolutionary plan that might well have succeeded but for an appalling sequence of sheer ill-luck.
Theobald Wolfe Tone was just 35 and a half when he committed suicide, with none of his ambitions achieved. Yet his reputation as the founding father of Irish republicanism is still in the zenith. His name was used by Davis and Pearce almost as a mantra and his grave at Bodenstown, County Kildare, is one of the most hallowed of republican sites. In spite of often frustrating efforts for his country's independence, Tone retained his courage, wit and the sense of fun that made him a sterling friend and popular companion. One of the founders of the United Irishmen and an early defender of the rights of Catholics, he might have had many different careers if early ambitions had been fulfilled. This short but comprehensive account of his life and work shows him to be a true patriot but a much more complex character than the icon-makers would have him.