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LEINSTER 9
Climb those hills as Emmet climbed them. If you
care to follow the most tragic romance of Irish history,
get your car driver to bring you where Bride Street
joins Thomas Street, not far from the house where
Lord Edward Fitzgerald was taken (a tablet marks
it). There, in the wedge of mean yards enclosed by
Bride Street and Marshalsea Lane, was the site of
Emmet's armoury and arsenal, whence he issued out
that July night—to how ghastly a failure! Then you
can drive up Francis Street (the route he followed in
escaping) and so to the Green at Haroldscross where
he used to meet Miles Byrne, the Wexford rebel,
Emmet's right-hand man, but later a colonel of Na-
poleon's army with the cross of honour upon his breast.
Beyond the Green is a little range of houses on the
right; somewhere there Emmet was taken by Sirr.
Farther still towards the hills is Rathfarnham, where
he lived during the long months of elaborate pre-
paration; and here it was that his faithful servant,
Anne Devlin, refused to betray his movements though
they half-hanged her between the shafts of a cart
Farther still, beyond Rathfarnham, a road takes you
past the Priory, the abode of John Philpot Curran,
that famous orator and patriot, whose daughter, Sarah,
was the heroine of Emmet's romance and of Moore's
lovery song, "She is far from the land where her
young hero sleeps". In the grounds of the Priory