4‭ ‬March‭ ‬1778:‭ ‬Robert Emmet was born in Dublin on this day.‭ ‬He was the youngest son of Dr Robert Emmet and Elizabeth‭ (‬Mason‭)‬.‭ ‬His father was a well to do Physician in the City with‭  ‬a house on St Stephens Green and another one down the Country.‭ ‬His elder brother Thomas Addis Emmet was a personal friend of Wolfe Tone who visited the family home on many occasions.‭ ‬He entered Trinity College in‭ ‬1793‭ ‬and joined the College Historical Society,‭ ‬a debating society.‭ ‬He became secretary to the United Irish Society in the college,‭ ‬but had abandon his studies in April‭ ‬1798‭ ‬when he and a number of students were expelled for their Republican sympathies.‭ ‬In‭ ‬1799‭ ‬he travelled to France to escape arrest and to secure support for another Rising in Ireland.‭

He returned home in late‭ ‬1802‭ ‬after the Peace of Amiens and began to lay plans to seize Dublin from the British.‭ ‬Unfortunately his plans were laid open by a premature explosion of his arsenal in July of the following year.‭ ‬He then banked all his hopes on an immediate eruption on‭ ‬23‭ ‬July but his venture quickly fell apart and he want into hiding.‭ ‬A few weeks later he was captured,‭ ‬tried for‭ ‘‬Treason‭’ ‬and gave the speech of his Life before the Court that quickly became a sensation and secured his reputation as a Patriot.‭

My country was my idol.‭ ‬To it I sacrificed every selfish,‭ ‬every endearing sentiment,‭ ‬and for it I now offer up myself‭ … ‬I acted as an Irishman,‭ ‬determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny and the more galling yoke of a domestic faction,‭ ‬which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide‭…

He was sentenced to be hung,‭ ‬drawn and quartered.‭ ‬This was duly carried out on‭ ‬20‭ ‬September before a large crowd in Thomas Street Dublin.‭ ‬The whereabouts of his body today remains a mystery.‭