Robert Emmet (1778-1803) was one Ireland's most romantic revolutionaries. The youngest son of Ireland's state physician, he was educated privately at Trinity College Dublin and, like many young people, was caught up in the fervour of the French Revolution. Expelled from Trinity in 1798 after involvement in insurrections in Ireland, he left for the Continent, where he met both Napoleon and Talleyrand. On his return to Dublin he organised and led the doomed insurrection of May 1803. Undone by lack of foreign help and probable betrayal by spies, Emmet was tried and executed, but not before making a speech from the dock which has resonated through subsequent Irish history.

Patrick Geoghegan re-examines the facts of Emmet's life and draws on new material from archives in Britain, France, the United States, and Ireland to show how Emmet's plans for rebellion, although undermined by internal disagreements, were much more ingenious than previously believed.