There was more than a little amazement among guests at the National Museum at Collins Barracks in Dublin for the launch of the 1798 Exhibition on Monday, when they met Jeremy Emmet from the Virginia in the US. For Emmet, a direct descendant of Thomas Addis Emmet who fled Ireland when his brother Robert was hanged in 1803, has an uncanny resemblance to his antecedent. Indeed, those who examined the death mask of Robert Emmet were stunned at the likeness.
Jeremy Emmet was in Dublin to plan the visit by the Emmet Society, comprising 200 of Thomas's US descendants, to Ireland next month and met the museum's director Pat Wallace. The Government's commemoration office, chaired by chief whip Seamus Brennan, is organising a conference in Dublin Castle for the visitors.
There are 1798 commemorations all over the place and much rivalry between different areas. Tomorrow the Wexford Senate, marking the occasion 200 years ago when 500 members convened to direct the course of the rebellion, reconvenes in Johnstown Castle and the keynote speaker will be Jim Bolger, the former prime minister of New Zealand, who is shortly to be that country's ambassador to Washington. His ancestors came from north Wexford. Rich Howlin of the committee says it is being reconvened "to commemorate the memory of the democrats of 1798, too often forgotten while popular culture concentrates on the military events".
Earlier this month Seamus Brennan went North to the other great area of rebellion and found himself in the unlikely setting of Hillsborough Castle, the home of Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam, in leafy Co Down, for a 1798 seminar dinner. There have been trips to London and Liverpool already and he goes to Paris and Brest for special conferences on the French connection next weekend. He points out that the new peace agreement was what the people of 200 years ago tried to achieve. In 1798 Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter were, for the first time, on the same side and had the same ideals.