on the Senior Fellows of Trinity College. His son Charles Richard Elrington was Regius Professor of Divinity in Trinity College. 16 39 72 118
Emmet, Thomas Addis, M.D., Barrister-at-law, a leading United Irishman, son of Dr. Robert Emmet, State Physician, was born in Cork, 24th April 1764. He was educated at the school of Mr. Kerr, and entered Trinity College in 1778. His career there gave ample promise of future eminence. Upon taking out his degree he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he devoted himself with ardour to medical studies, and formed lasting friendships with Sir James Mackintosh and Dugald Stewart. He was at one time the president of no fewer than five societies — literary, scientific, and medical — formed among his fellow-students. He remained in Edinburgh the winter after his graduation, visited some of the principal schools of medicine in Great Britain, and afterwards travelled through Germany, France, and Italy. On his way home, news reached him of the death of his elder brother Temple, a young barrister of great promise. At his father's desire, and by the advice of Mackintosh, he immediately relinquished medicine, read for two years at the Temple, and was admitted to the Irish Bar in Michaelmas Term, 1790. The following year he married Jane, daughter of the Rev. John Patten of Clonmel. The first case in which he distinguished himself was that of J. Napper Tandy against the Viceroy (the Earl of Westmoreland) and others, in which the validity of the Lord-Lieutenant's patent was contested, as having been granted under the great seal of England instead of under the Irish seal. Leonard McNally was one of Emmet's fellow-counsel, and there is every reason to believe betrayed all the pleadings to the Government. Emmet's speech attracted considerable attention, and a full report of the proceedings at the trial was published by the Society of United Irishmen. In September 1793 we find Emmet associated with the Sheareses and McNally, in the defence of a Mr. O'Driscoll, tried for seditious libel at the Cork assizes. In 1795 he appeared as counsel for persons charged with administering the United Irish oath, and to confirm his argument in favour of its legality, solemnly took it himself in open court. The next year, 1796, he began to take a prominent and leading part as a United Irishman. Possessed of private means, already earning £750 a year at the Bar, with a young family rising up round him, of domestic habits and irreproachable character, nothing but the clearest convictions of duty could have impelled him to range himself against the Government. Already, in 1792, he had joined the Catholic Committee, and Tone speaks of him as "the best of all the friends to Catholic Emancipation" except himself. In this service he had made no public display. The meeting with Russell and Tone, prior to the departure of the latter for America, took place at Emmet's house near Rathfarnham in 1795. In 1794 the Society was forcibly broken up; in the beginning of 1795 it was reorganized as a secret society, and in 1796 the military organization was engrafted on the civil. Upon O'Connor's arrest in 1797, Emmet took his place on the Directory. FitzGerald, O'Connor, and Jackson urged immediate action. Emmet, McCormick, and McNevin advocated the policy of waiting for French assistance. Emmet afterwards admitted that this dependence on French assistance was ultimately fatal, and that Bonaparte was the "worst enemy Ireland ever had." The Government, having allowed the plans of the Society to reach sufficient maturity, availed themselves of the services of Reynolds, the informer, and on the 12th March 1798 the deputies were arrested at Oliver Bond's, in Bridge-street. Emmet and others were taken at their houses, examined at the Castle, and after a few days committed to Newgate. There was no specific charge against Emmet, but he was rightly regarded as one of the most formidable opponents of the Government. Soon after his committal, his wife managed to visit him, and with the connivance of the jailers, and through her own determination and firmness, she was permitted to reside with him during the whole term of his incarceration of twelve months in Newgate and Kilmainham. Meanwhile, during the summer, abortive risings took place in different parts of the country, and after the engagements of Antrim, Ballinahinch, and Vinegar Hill in June, and the capitulation of Ovidstown on the 12th July, all hopes from insurrection were over. Blood now flowed in torrents, and with a view to arrest the slaughter, Emmet and other State-prisoners entered into an agreement with the Government, by which they bound themselves to disclose all the workings and plans of the association, without implicating persons, upon condition that the Government should stop the executions, and allow him and his companions to leave the country. Emmet's examination before Parliamentary Committees took place in August. He defended the policy of the United Irishmen, and showed that revolution was inevitable after the rejection of the moderate demands
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