William Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket
William Conyngham Plunket, 1st Baron Plunket, PC (Ire), QC was an Irish politician and lawyer. After gaining public notoriety as the prosecutor in the treason trial of Robert Emmet in 1803, he rose rapidly in government service. He become Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1830 and served, with a brief interruption, in that post until his retirement in 1841.
Lord Plunket.
Robert Emmet 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 Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, and to establish a nationally representative government. Emmet entertained, but ultimately abandoned, hopes of immediate French assistance and of coordination with radical militants in Great Britain. In Ireland, many of the surviving veterans of '98 hesitated to lend their support, and his rising in Dublin in 1803 proved abortive.
Emmet in Thomas Street, The Shamrock, Dublin, 1890
Site of Mrs. Palmer's house in Harold's Cross where Emmet was arrested, with memorial marker.
Depiction of Robert Emmet's trial
Robert Emmet was honoured on two Irish postage stamps issued in 1953, commemorating the 150th anniversary of his death