Where was Emmet buried?

The Mystery Enshrouding Emmet’s Grave

Robert Emmet, when asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him, delivered an eloquent oration, which thus concluded:-

“Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them; let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. 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!”

Notwithstanding the interest attaching to the name of Emmet, the locality of his final resting-place and uninscribed stone has been hitherto undetermined.

A correspondent of the *Irishman *newspaper has requested information as to whether the “uninscribed tomb of Robert Emmet is the one pointed out in St Michan’s churchyard? I am aware that the question has been often asked, and, as appeared to me, not satisfactorily answered. I arrived at this conclusion owing to the absence of any information by members of the Emmet family. My reason for asking the question is, being in the vestry of St Peter’s, Dublin, some short time ago, I was told by the men connected therewith that Emmet was *positively *interred close to the footpath, (left gate,) or near to where the old watch-house stood, and was pointed out to them, as they stated, by some member or acquaintance of the family from America some few years ago. If there be nothing for it but the uninscribed tomb of Michan’s, I would be inclined to think that Peter’s was the place, as tombs of the above description are not so very rare.”

It is not the remains of Robert Emmet, the orator and insurgent leader, but of his father Robert Emmet, State Physician, which are interred in St Peter’s churchyard. The latter died on the 9th of December 1802, and was buried in St Peter’s, three days afterwards, according to an official certificate furnished to Dr Madden. The mother of young Robert Emmet is likewise interred in the same grave.

Another correspondent of the journal just quoted said:-

“No allusion has been made to James’s parish cemetery. The sexton told me about two years ago that there was a registration of his having been interred there. This is not at all improbable, it being so near the place of his execution. It is a sad thing that such discrepancy should exist.”

Owing to this suggestion, we carefully examined the Burial Register of St James’s Church, held by the parish clerk Mr Falls, but no trace of Emmet’s interment can be found in it.

We had the pleasure, soon after, of a conversation with John Patten when in his eighty-seventh year. This gentleman was the brother-in-law of Thomas Addis Emmet. He told us that having been a state prisoner in 1803, he was not present at Emmet’s funeral. He had no authentic information on the subject, but, according to his impression, Robert Emmet had been buried in Bully’s Acre - also known as the Hospital Fields; and that the remains were from thence removed to Michan’s churchyard, where the ashes of Bond and the Sheareses rest. He added that Doctor Gamble of St Michan’s, the clergyman who attended Emmet in his last moments, was a not unlikely person to have got the remains removed from Bully’s Acre to St Michan’s.

A literary friend of ours, Mr Hercules Ellis, was speaking of Emmet and the uninscribed tomb at a dinner party, when a gentleman present corrected the error under which he conceived Mr Ellis laboured respecting the place of his burial.

It was not in Michan’s churchyard,” he said, ” but in Glasnevin, and I speak on the best authority, for my late father was the incumbent there at the time, and I repeatedly heard him say that he was brought out of his bed at the dead of night to perform the burial service over Emmet. There were only four persons present, two women and two men. One of the men he understood to be Dowdall, the natural son of Hussy Burgh, and one of the ladies Sarah Curran, who had been betrothed to Emmet. The corpse was conveyed through a little narrow door leading into the old churchyard of Glasnevin from the handsome demesne of Delville, formerly the residence of Dean Delany.”

With interest awakened by this tradition we visited the classic grounds of Delville, and the old graveyard adjacent, accompanied by Mr Ellis, the great-grandson of the wife of Dean Delany, to the memory of both of whom a tablet, almost smothered in ivy, is set in the churchyard wall - the boundary which divides their former residence from their final resting-place. We learned from the gardener who acted as cicerone that there was a tradition precisely to the effect of the statement made by the clergyman’s son. Our conductor having unlocked a narrow door which leads to the little cemetery, pointed out a grass-grown grave and uninscribed head-stone immediately to the left on entering.

The entire aspect of the place forcibly recalled to our mind Moore’s description of Emmet’s grave

“Oh, breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,

Where, cold and unhonoured, his relics are laid;

Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,

As the night-dew that falls on the grass o’er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, thongh in silence it weeps,

Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps.”

This description, by the early friend and college chum of Emmet, is entirely applicable to the picturesque green grave near classic Delville and the deserted village of Glasnevin, [Many a pleasant day Addison, as he tells us, passed among these picturesque grounds. Tickell, his executor, resided in the adjacent demesne, now known as the Botanical Gardens, and Parnell the poet was vicar of a neighbouring hamlet. Swift has celebrated the beauties of Delville in prose and verse, to the inspiration of which Stella not a little contributed. In a retired grotto may be seen a fine medallion likeness of Stella, in excellent preservation, from the artistic hand of Mrs Delany, with the inscription, “Fastigia despicit urbis,” composed by Swift. Several old basement rooms are shown as the site of the private printing presses employed by Swift and Delany.] but is inappropriate to the huge flat flag, excluding every blade of grass, in St Michan’s, Church Street, Dublin. It is not easy to understand how a tomb thus situated could “brighten with verdure.” Moore would appear to have had rather the grass-grown grave at Delville in his mind than the flat, dusty stone in a back street of Dublin.

The following letter from the late Dr Petrie, the father of Irish archaeology, tends the more to corroborate our views, as it was written before he had seen the above, or even heard the substance of it. The letter possesses additional interest from the fact that it is one of the last penned by Petrie:-

“7 Charlemont Place, Nov. 10, 1865.

My Dear Sir, - According to my recollections and belief, derived from the best local authorities, the grave of poor Emmet is in the churchyard of Glasnevin, and is situated at one side, the left, as I think, of a private doorway, which gave to the family occupying Delville House a direct passage to the church, and thus enabled them to avoid coming round through the town to the service. - Believe me, my dear sir, most truly yours,

“George Petrie.

“P.S. - The above was written before I read the printed paper which you enclosed.”

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