Daniel O'Connell and the revival of national life in Ireland . ropolis the sound of a call toarms. On that quiet summer evening, the 23rdJuly, 1803, a fresh insurrection had broken out. Fora moment Thomas Street was filled by a rushing,thronging crowd. For a moment there was a realdanger lest Dublin Castle should fall into theirhands. Half an hour later their leader, the ill-fatedbut high-souled Robert Emmet, was a fugitiveamong the Wicklow hills, and of the insurrectionnothing remained but the corpse of one grey-headedold man, a judge of the land. Lord Kilwarden, thanwhom Ireland never had a
Daniel O'Connell and the revival of national life in Ireland . ropolis the sound of a call toarms. On that quiet summer evening, the 23rdJuly, 1803, a fresh insurrection had broken out. Fora moment Thomas Street was filled by a rushing,thronging crowd. For a moment there was a realdanger lest Dublin Castle should fall into theirhands. Half an hour later their leader, the ill-fatedbut high-souled Robert Emmet, was a fugitiveamong the Wicklow hills, and of the insurrectionnothing remained but the corpse of one grey-headedold man, a judge of the land. Lord Kilwarden, thanwhom Ireland never had a warmer or a truer friend,done to death in a mistake. Yes! the whole thingwas a mistake. I ask you, said OConnell, whether a madderscheme was ever devised by a Bedlamite ? Here wasMr. Emmet, having got together about ^1200 in money,and seventy-four men ; whereupon he makes war uponKing George IH., with 150,000 of the best troops inEurope, and the wealth of three kingdoms at his com-mand ! Why, my good sir, poor Emmets scheme wasas wild as anything in o 2 1812] Ireland After the Union. 25 But mad and visionary as the scheme was, it is outof such stuff that the history of Ireland is chieflymade up. Time after time had the Irish measuredtheir strength against the might of England, eachtime to reap only defeat and irretrievable would they learn the folly of these heroicexperiments ? There, keeping watch and ward in the street forsix nights together, so long as the panic lasted,dressed in the uniform of the Lawyers YeomanryCorps, learning among other things that to entrustcivilians with a bayonet was not perhaps the bestway to restore order, stood one whose lifes businessit was to instruct his fellow-countrymen in the effi-cacy of constitutional agitation ; to turn them asidefrom midnight conspiracy and frantic rebellion ; toconvince them that the pen of the gownsman andthe voice of the orator are more effective weaponsthan the sword of the soldier and the kni
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