Above : Illustrating Picture Of Samuel Neilson In A Meeting

The progress of the French Revolution was watched with great interest in Ireland. Many of the Catholic gentry had spent some years of their youth at one or other of the French colleges, or had relatives or friends serving in the Irish Brigade. These, as a rule, sided with the Royalists, especially when news reached them of the terrible excesses of which the extreme section of the revolutionists had been guilty. The bishops and clergy also, fearing the spread of the anti-religious spirit of the Republican Party, constantly warned their flocks against the wild and criminal ideas which prevailed in France. We have seen that the Irish Parliament, which may be regarded as voicing the opinions of the upper and middle classes of the Episcopalian Protestants, almost unanimously supported the British Government in its declaration of war against the Republic.

Above : Painting Of Lord Gosford

Meanwhile, the treatment of the Irish rural population by the authorities was calculated rather to exasperate than to appease their discontents.

Above : Picture Of Thomas Addis Emmet, Older Brother Of Robert Emmet

In speaking of the Rebellion of 1798 mention has been made of Thomas Addis Emmet, one of the United Irishmen, who, arrested before the outbreak, escaped a capital sentence, and ended his days in exile. He had a younger brother, Robert, who in 1798 was a student of Trinity College, Dublin. Robert adopted with enthusiasm the French Revolutionary principles, and enunciated them so openly that he was expelled from the University and noted to the Castle authorities as a dangerous person.