 On his return to Ireland in May 1803 Cloney immediately involved himself with Robert Emmet and his associates.In Byrnes's "Memoirs", he describes a meeting he arranged between Robert Emmet and Cloney at Harold's Cross Green, Dublin shortly before Emmet's uprising.Circumstantial evidence would suggest that Emmet had appointed Cloney to act as his General for County Wexford, had the anticipated success of the rising in Dublin come about.