City Of Dublin
About Our Hero, Robert Emmett
Statue of Irish Patriot Robert Emmett
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, Ireland
Intro by Don Kelly
Robert Emmet led a rebellion against the English in 1789. He was tried later by the English and hanged.
Near the end of his trial, he made this famous statement:
"I have but one request to make at my departure from this world. It is the charity of its silence.
Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives now dares 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."
Garden of Remembrance
by Irish artist Oisin Kelly.
Poem by Liam Mac Uistin, 1976
Intro by Don Kelly
The Garden of Remembrance in Central Dublin honors those Irish patriots who died fighting for freedom at the fountain where this memorial stands.
The statue depicts the mythological Children of Lir who were turned into swans. The plaque reads:
"In the darkness of despair we saw a vision. We lit the light of hope and it was not extinguished. In the desert of discouragement we saw a vision. We planted the tree of valour and it blossomed.
In the winter of bondage we saw a vision. We melted the snow of lethargy and the river of resurrection flowed from it.
We sent our vision aswim like a swan on the river. The vision became a reality. Winter became summer. Bondage became freedom and this we left to you as our inheritance.
O generations of freedom remember us. The generations of the vision."
O wise men, riddle me this; what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true, and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of thy dreadful word, do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith.
Padraic Pearse, 1915
Photographs: Around Dublin: