IA.Hib26_IA Template 2/5/16 7:42 PM Page 26 hibernia | Robert Emmet: A Symbol for Independence ithin sight of the Irish Embassy and the National Park Service. is Kerry-born sculptor Jerome Jack O’Brien, who was instrumental in Connor’s famous memorial to creating a memorial to Commodore John IWrish patriot Robert Emmet, commissio ned Barry as well as the Irish Brigade Monument in 1916 by a group of Irish Americans at Antietam National Battlefield, sees the (including the singer John McCormack) to Emmet statue as a priority for the Irish com - commemorate Irish independ ence. Connor munity in Washington. “We have a synergy chose to render Emmet delivering his fa - of centennials here, one to honor the heroes mous speech from the dock, an enduring of the Rising and the other to honor the great symbol of the struggle for freedom, because work Connor created in 1916,” he says. without Emmet, there would quite simply Jerome Connor was born in Coumduff, have been no 1916 Rising. Annascaul, on the Dingle Peninsula, in 1874. Robert Emmet was born in 1778 to a fam - In 1888 he immigrated to Massachusetts, ily of Irish patriots imbued with passion for where he trained as a stonecutter and bronze Irish independence. In 1803, Emmet led an founder before moving to the Stickley arts armed insurrection that proclaimed an Irish and crafts center in Syracuse. Republic. The rebellion was crushed by As a young man, he became interested in British troops; Emmet was captured, tried, Walt Whitman and made studies for a monu - and sentenced to death. ment to Whitman and a commemorative In his inspiring speech Emmet pro - Whitman medal (1905) that brought him crit - claimed: “I wished to procure for my ical notice as a sculptor. In 1910 he settled in country the guarantee which Washington Washington, D.C. procured for America.” His concluding When the Irish Free State was established, words have echoed through the ages: Connor returned to Ireland and executed de - “When my country takes her place among signs for the new coinage and relief portraits nations, then and not till then, let my of leading politicians. “His work celebrated epitaph be written.” heroes of America’s past and subjects that In 1803, the 25-year-old Emmet was exe - resonated with the Irish-American commu - cuted by hanging and beheading. His legacy nity,” wrote historian John Turpin. “His work helped inspire the sequence of events result - in Ireland related to the struggle for independ - ing in Irish independence: the 1916 Easter ence. Connor’s best work was modeled from Rising, which set off the War of Independ - life, as in the two fishermen on the Lusitania ence, the Irish Civil War, and the establishment of the ABOVE: Jerome Memorial.” Connor’s 1916 statue of Irish Free State in 1922. Robert Emmet on The Lusitania Memorial was a prestigious project In 1917, the Robert Emmet Statue Committee, Massachusetts Avenue that ended tragically for Connor. In 1925, he was with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in attendance, in Washington, D.C. commissioned to create the memorial in Cobh, Co. presented its gift to the Smithsonian and the Amer - Cork, to commemorate the 1,198 lives lost in the BELOW: Kerry-born ican people. The sculpture was placed on view in sculptor Jerome Connor . sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. the rotunda of the Smithsonian’s U.S. National But by 1943, the year of Connor’s death, the Museum (now the National Museum of Natural Lusitania Memorial was not complete, and he died History). To commemorate the 50th anniversary of penniless. Sculptor Domhnall O’Murchadha saved the Rising, the sculpture was moved to its present the principal plaster figures in Connor’s studio and site on April 22, 1966, on long-term loan to the supervised the memorial’s completion. National Park Service. O’Murchadha helped to form the Jerome The seven-foot-tall sculpture of Emmet Connor Trust, which enabled the National proved so popular that a copy was cast and un - Gallery of Ireland to offer its collection of small veiled in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in bronzes to Connor’s home town of Annascaul. A 1919 by Irish leader Éamon de Valera. In 1922, permanent sculpture gallery for the collection Congress authorized the gift of a third replica to officially opened in 2014 at the South Pole Inn in the National Gallery of Ireland that now stands in Annascaul. St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. Tom Kennedy, who consults with art historian The statue will be re-dedicated in March 2016 to Catherine Marshall, encourages visitors. “We wel - commemorate the centennial of the Easter Rising. come all to our gallery. Your visit will honor this The Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Amer - remarkable Irishman, Dingle’s native son, who does ican Unity Conference are spearheading the collab - us all proud in America and in Ireland.” oration with the Smithsonian American Art Museum – By Turlough McConnel 26 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2016.