Editing Robert Emmet (section)

==Representation in popular culture==
[[File:Brandon Tynan's Robert Emmet (3).jpg|left|thumb|Brandon Tynan's ''Robert Emmet, The Days of 1803.'' Chicago 1903]]
In a speech on Emmet in New York City in 1904, [[W. B. Yeats]] famously observed that "Emmet died and became an image".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Foster|first=R. F.|title=W. B. Yeats, A Life, I: The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1998|isbn=9780192880857|pages=312–314}}</ref> This was the work first, and foremost, of [[Thomas Moore]].<ref name=":02" /> In his popular ballad "O! Breathe Not His Name",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Oh, Breathe Not His Name|url=https://www.contemplator.com/ireland/breathe.html|access-date=2021-12-08|website=www.contemplator.com}}</ref> Moore made his former Trinity College friend the touchstone of national sentiment: "Oh breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, / Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid! [...] / And the tear we shed, though secret it rolls, Shall keep his memory green in our souls". Dwelling upon the heartache of Sarah Curran, his "She is Far From the Land Where Her Young Hero Sleeps" also made Emmet an icon of romantic love.<ref>{{Cite web|title=O! Breathe Not His Name. Thomas Moore (1779-1852). September 20. James and Mary Ford, eds. 1902. Every Day in the Year: A Poetical Epitome of the World's History|url=https://www.bartleby.com/297/523.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613225452/https://www.bartleby.com/297/523.html|archive-date=13 June 2021|access-date=2021-06-13|website=www.bartleby.com}}</ref>

In Irish America where, together with Emmet's Speech from the Dock, "O! Breathe Not His Name" became part of the canon of parochial education, Moore had innumerable imitators. Of these, one of the most ambitious was [[John Boyle O'Reilly]], a member of the [[Irish Republican Brotherhood]] who had escaped from penal servitude in [[Western Australia]]. O'Reilly wrote a publicly performed eighty-four line poem, "The Patriot's Grave" (1878) in which he both echoes the defiance of Emmet's last words while attempting to bring the defence of physical force within a broader tradition that embraced constitutional agitation (to add Emmet to a Pantheon that included "[[Henry Grattan|Grattan]], [[Henry Flood|Flood]] and [[John Philpot Curran|Curran]]").<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal|last=Fanning|first=Charles|date=2004|title=Robert Emmet and Nineteenth-Century Irish America|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20646472|journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua|volume=8|issue=4|pages=53–83|jstor=20646472|issn=1092-3977}}</ref> Emmet was also a frequent character on the patriotic stage. Typical of his green-uniform presentation was [[Brandon Tynan|Brandon Tynon]]'s melodrama, ''Robert Emmet, the Days of 1803'', which premiered on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1902.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Robert Emmet – Broadway Play – Original {{!}} IBDB|url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/robert-emmet-5603|access-date=2021-12-08|website=www.ibdb.com}}</ref>

In the nineteenth century, the Emmet story also found its way into prose. On both sides of the Atlantic John Doherty's 1836 ''Life, Trial and Conversation and Times of Robert Emmet'', and [[Richard Robert Madden|R. R. Madden's]] 1844 ''Life and Time of Robert Emmet'' became the standard references. With less patience for historical or political background, what tended to be drawn out in subsequent works was the notion of  "pure sacrifice". In ''Robert Emmet, A Survey of his Rebellion and of His Romance'' (1904), [[Louise Imogen Guiney]] classes Emmet with [[Charlotte Corday]] and [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]].<ref name=":8" />

In the early twentieth century, Moore's Emmet appeared in pioneering film. While focusing on the Emmet-Curran love story, the 1911[[Thanhouser Company|Thanhouser film]] (USA) ''Robert Emmet'' depicts Emmet's expulsion from Trinity College, his meeting with Napoleon, his part in the rising and his capture, trial and execution.<ref>{{Cite web|title=ROBERT EMMET|url=https://www.thanhouser.org/tcocd/Filmography_files/kefl3p.htm|access-date=2021-12-08|website=www.thanhouser.org}}</ref> Some of the same storyline features in ''[[Ireland a Nation]]'' (1914) written and produced in London and Ireland by Walter MacNamara,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Rockett|first1=Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-dkAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Ireland,+A+Nation%22+1914|title=National Cinema and Beyond|last2=Hill|first2=John|date=5 December 2004|publisher=Four Courts|isbn=9781851828739|via=Google Books}}</ref> and Sidney Olcott's  ''[[Bold Emmett Ireland's Martyr]]'' (1915, Sid Films, USA).<ref name=":7">{{Cite web|last=Rockett|first=Kevin|date=2013|title=Emmet on film|url=https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/emmet-on-film/|access-date=2021-12-08|website=History Ireland}}</ref><ref>Arthur Flynn (2005)'', The Story of Irish Film'', Currach Press, Dublin. {{ISBN|1-85607-914-7}}.</ref>

Many decades later there was a step away from hagiography. In her screen drama ''Anne Devlin'' (1984), the Irish [[feminist]] filmmaker [[Pat Murphy (director)|Pat Murphy]] offers an implicit criticism of patriotic politics that operates "largely at the level of signs and representations". In one scene, Emmet enters a room as Devlin is holding up his splendid green uniform in front of a mirror. Asked what she thinks of it, Devlin (cousin of the guerrilla leader Michael Dwyer) replies that it looks like a green version of an English Redcoat, and will be seen "a mile off". "We should", she argues, "be rebel as ourselves’".<ref name=":7" />

Emmet is "bold Robert" in the song ''[[Back Home in Derry]]'', written by [[Bobby Sands]] in [[HM Prison Maze]] before his fatal [[1981 Irish hunger strike|hunger strike in 1981]].<ref name="TEN1">{{cite web|last1=Deboick|first1=Sophia|date=14 June 2020|title=Londonderry: A city where music has been shaped by trauma|url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/londonderry-a-city-where-music-has-been-shaped-by-trauma-83046|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210801051157/https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/londonderry-a-city-where-music-has-been-shaped-by-trauma-83046|archive-date=1 August 2021|access-date=1 August 2021|website=[[The New European]]|location=[[London]]|language=en-UK}}</ref> The lyrics, describing the feelings of rebels convicts as leave Ireland for Australia, were recorded by [[Christy Moore]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2012-02-17|title=Back Home In Derry|url=https://www.christymoore.com/lyrics/back-home-in-derry/|access-date=2021-12-08|website=Christy Moore}}</ref>