Revolutionary from the start

Patriot and idealist Robert Emmet was a child of revolution. He was also, significantly, the younger brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, a United Irishman and barrister, whose first brief was the defence of Napper Tandy.

Robert Emmet is too often remembered for two things, his dramatic speech from the dock and - thanks to Thomas Moore - for his love of the equally tragic Sarah Curran. Yet for all his youth - Emmet was only 25 when sentenced to death for treason, hung and later crudely beheaded - he had already developed a political intelligence and possessed a vision more practical than that with which he is credited. As a student at Trinity College, he excelled at debate and became one of the leaders of the United Irishmen. Having eluded arrest in 1799, he set off for France to discuss Ireland's future with Napoleon and Talleyrand. Although the 1803 Rising collapsed in disorganised failure, Emmet's gesture achieved its aim - armed force, not debate, was prepared to dictate the struggle for Irish independence. Countering the romanticism of his legacy, the impact of his closing sentence of his famous speech, "when my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done", continues to reverberate. He remains the most uncompromised of Irish political figures.