Robert Emmet

Robert Emmet (4 March 1778 - 20 September 1803) was an Irish nationalist and Republican, orator and rebel leader. He led an abortive rebellion against British rule in 1803. He was captured by the British, tried and executed for high treason against the British king. Robert Emmet came from a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant family who sympathised with Irish Catholics and their lack of fair representation in Parliament. The Emmet family also sympathised with the rebel colonists in the American Revolution. While Emmet's efforts to rebel against British rule failed, his actions and speech after his conviction inspired his compatriots. Robert Emmet wrote a letter from his cell in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin on 8 September 1803. He addressed it to "Miss Sarah Curran, the Priory, Rathfarnham" and handed it to a prison warden, George Dunn, whom he trusted to deliver it. Dunn betrayed him and gave the letter to the government authorities. Due to Emmet's attempt to hide near Curran, which cost him his life, and his parting letter to her, Emmet became known as a legendary romantic character, appealing to the Victorian Era's appetite for Romanticism.