Statue of Robert Emmet in Washington DC Honors Irish rebel and martyr to Ireland's Freedom

-

Photo couresty of NPS / Claire Hassler

A bronze statue in Washington, DC honoring Robert Emmet was created in 1916 by Irish sculptor Jerome Connor (1874–1943), who used Emmet's own desk mask to model the face.  Emmet was an Irish nationalist and rebel who was hanged and beheaded at age 25 on September 20, 1803 on Thomas Street in Dublin, Ireland, after being convicted of high treason by the British government.

Connor made three original castings of the Emmet statue.  The first casting was unveiled in June 28, 1917, at the main rotunda of the Smithsonian national museum in Washington DC.  US President Woodrow Wilson and his wife attended the event, along with and numerous dignitaries from the United States and Ireland and leaders of the Irish-American community. US Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White accepted the statue on behalf of the American people. 


"About the statue will be draped the Stars and Stripes, and on the base will rest the Gaelic flag, so valorously and proudly carried by Irish patriots centuries ago while fighting the cause of a free "little nation.' These two flags will be unfurled when the statue is dedicated and presented," wrote the Baltimore Evening Sun. 

On April 22, 1966, the Emmet statue was moved from the Smithsonian to Rock Creek Park in Washington DC as part of the Jubilee Celebration. Located at the corner of Massachusetts Ave and 24th St, NW, the park is managed by the National Park Service.  President Lyndon B. Johnson sent a greetings at the unveiling and guest speaker was Speaker of the House John W. McCormack from South Boston, who said, "Robert Emmet, the martyr to liberty, deserves our deepest respect, our highest homage. Freedom has been established only by sacrifices of life such as his."


Extracts from Emmet's speech from the dock September 19, 1803 are placed near the statue in Washington, reading:

 I wish to procure for my 
country the guarantee which 
Washington procured for America.

I have parted from everything 
that was dear to me in this life 
for my country's cause.

When my country takes her 
place among the nations of the 
Earth, then, and not till then 
let my epitaph be written.

The second casting of the Emmet statue was unveiled at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on July 20, 1919 and attended by Irish Republic President Eamon de Valera during his historic US fundraising tour.

The third casting was lost for decades until it was discovered in an antique store in Pottsville, PA in 1961m when John F. Kennedy was the US president.  It was officially unveiled on January 20, 1968 on St. Stephen's Green in Dublin, directly across from the house where Emmet was born.


Portrait of Jerome Connor by Gaetano de Gennaro, 1943

Born in Coumduff, Annascaul, County Kerry, Jerome Connor was the sixth and youngest son of Patrick and Margaret Connor.  The family moved to Holyoke, MA in the 1890s when he was a teenager. 

Connor also created the "Nuns of the Battlefield" monument, less than two miles away from the Robert Emmet statue. It was unveiled on September 20, 1924.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Irish-born Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's Master Sculptor in the 19th Century

-
Image
Courtesy of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH Acclaimed as America's greatest sculptor of the 19 th century, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was born on March 1, 1848 on Charlemount Street in Dublin at the height of the Irish Famine, when millions of Irish were fleeing Ireland to places like Boston, New York, Montreal, St. John and other eastern port cities.    His father Bernard Saint-Gaudens was a French cobbler who had "a wonderfully complex mixture of a fierce French accent and Irish brogue."   His mother, Mary McGuinness, was born in Bally Mahon, County Longford, to Arthur McGuinness and Mary Daly. According to his son Homer, when Augustus was six months old, "the famine in Ireland compelled (the family) to go to America."   They landed in Boston in September 1848, where they lived for six weeks until the father found work in New York City and sent for them.   Augustus apprenticed as a cameo cutter, and in ...
Read more

John 'Honey Fitz' Fitzgerald, Grandfather of John F. Kennedy, Dies in Boston on October 2, 1950

-
Image
    John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston and grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, died on October 2, 1950 at the Hotel Bellevue in Boston after a long illness. At his bedside were his wife Josephine, two sons, John and Thomas, and their wives, along with his nurse. His daughter Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was in Paris and was notified, according to the Boston Globe. Fitzgerald was an audacious, colorful politician whose melodious singing voice earned him the nickname Honey Fitz. Born in Boston's North End on February 11, 1863, he was the son of Irish immigrant Thomas Fitzgerald of Limerick and Mary Josephine Hannon of Acton, MA. His daughter, Rose Fitzgerald , married Joseph P. Kennedy from East Boston, spawning the Kennedy political dynasty that dominated Boston for most of the 20th century. Fitzgerald's political career happened quickly. He worked his way up from the Boston Common Council in 1892 to state senate in 1893. In the congressional primary held in Sept...
Read more

Boston's Purple Shamrock, James Michael Curley, died on November 12, 1958

-
Image
Twin Curley statues at Union Park on Congress Street, Boston James Michael Curley , the larger-than-life political figure who dominated Boston and Massachusetts politics for half a century, died on November 12, 1958.   Over 100,000 people passed by his coffin at the Hall of Flags in the Massachusetts State House, according to a story in  The Boston Globe .  “The rich and the humble, Democrats and Republicans, bared the depth of their tribune in whispered prayers and unrestrained tears,” wrote the  Globe . Then a final process drove Curley's body through the streets of Boston and then to Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End, where his son, Reverend Francis S. Curley, S.J., celebrated mass along with Richard Cardinal Cushing of  South Boston .   Curley is buried the  Old   Calvary   Cemetery  in  Boston .  Born on November 20, 1874 on Northampton Street in Roxbury, Curley's political career was unparalleled. ...
Read more