Christopher Temple Emmet (1761 – February 1788) was an Irish barrister and poet, born into a well-connected, but politically radical, Ascendancy family.

Early life

Emmet was born at Cork in 1761. He was the eldest son of Elizabeth (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Mason) Emmet (1740–1803) and Robert Emmet, M.D. (1729–1802), a state physician and physician to the viceregal household. His younger brothers were, in the decade following his death,

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure Representative democracy, representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British ...

Thomas Addis Emmet Thomas Addis Emmet (24 April 176414 November 1827) was an Irish and American lawyer and politician. In Ireland, in the 1790s, he was a senior member of the Society of United Irishmen as it planned for an insurrection against the British Crown ...

, forced into exile after the Rebellion of 1798, and

Robert Emmet Robert Emmet (4 March 177820 September 1803) was an Irish Republican, orator and rebel leader. Following the suppression of the United Irish uprising in 1798, he sought to organise a renewed attempt to overthrow the British Crown and Prote ...

, executed for his role in attempting to renew the republican insurrection with a rising in Dublin in 1803. His younger sister was the poet and writer Mary Anne Holmes, the wife of fellow barrister Robert Holmes. The Emmets had been financially comfortable, members of the

Protestant Ascendancy The Protestant Ascendancy (also known as the Ascendancy) was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglicanism, Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, ...

with a house at St Stephen's Green and a country residence near Milltown. Christopher Emmet entered

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

in 1775, and obtained a scholarship there in 1778.

Career

He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1781. Emmet attained eminence as an advocate; he possessed a highly poetical imagination, remarkably retentive memory, and a vast amount of acquired knowledge of law, divinity, and literature. Under the chancellorship of Lord Lifford, Emmet was advanced to the rank of

King's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1787.

Works

Emmet's only known writings are a short poem on the myrtle and other trees, and an allegory of thirty-two stanzas of four lines each, entitled ''The Decree''. The latter was written during the administration of, and inscribed to, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, viceroy of Ireland from 1777 to 1780. In these verses Emmet predicted that England's future eminence would be endangered unless she acted justly towards Ireland by annulling harsh laws, and by removing the enactments prohibiting commerce between the Irish and America, which he styled 'the growing western world.'

Personal life

In 1781, he married his second cousin, Anne Western Shirley Temple, daughter of Harriet (née Shirley) Temple and Robert Temple, an American

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

who had settled in Ireland. Emmet died in February 1788, while he was on circuit in the south of Ireland, and his widow died in the following November. After his death, his younger brother

decided to study law at the Inner Temple in London and was later admitted to the Irish bar in 1790.

Early life

Career

Works

Personal life

References

See also