Terry's speech from the dock

The Diary ran into Terry Meaney downtown recently and he reminded us of the final stirring paragraphs of the speech from the dock by Robert Emmet, which he is able to recite in toto.



For those who have forgotten it since their schooldays, we reproduce it below, as Terry enunciated it in the company of Donal St Leger.

I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world -- it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.

Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.