Robert Emmet: the making of a legend

From the publishers:
This is a book on Robert Emmet, designed to coincide with the bicentenary of his death. After a rapidly convened trial he was executed for treason by the British government in September 1803. He quickly became a legend, fuelled by his speech from the dock after the judge pronounced sentence, his doomed romance with Sarah Curran (whose father, a Patriot advocate, had refused to help Emmet), the moving scenes from his last night in prison, and his courage and defiance at the scaffold. His speech, 'When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and only then may my epitaph be written' is among the great cri de coeurs of the republicans movement and was the romantic inspiration for the 'blood and honour' legend that built up around him. This coloured the whole course of the fight for Irish nationalism. Two hundred years from his death, many nationalists can still recite by heart his famous death oration. Because he never had a formal burial there has been a 200-year obsession with where his body might be buried. So who was Emmet? How and why did he become such a powerful nationalist symbol? His fellow-conspirator Thomas Russell, who like Emmet was hanged and beheaded in 1803, is now almost utterly forgotten. So why is Emmet remembered to this day in folk ballads and popular myths, in plays, in the words of Patrick Pearce and Michael Collins, and in the work of writers as diverse as Shelley, Yeats and James Joyce?

Professor Marianne Elliott is one of Ireland's leading historians. Her previous books include The Catholics of Ulster and Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence. She is founder and director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University. Professor Elliott has also played an important role in the promotion of peace efforts in Northern Ireland, most notably serving on the Opsahl Commission in 1993. In October 2000 she was awarded an OBE for services to Irish Studies and the Northern Ireland peace process.