Irish nationalist, born in Dublin, Ireland. A Protestant, he studied at Dublin, was called to the bar in 1789, acted as secretary of the Catholic Committee, and helped to organize the Society of United Irishmen (most of whose members were Protestants), who aimed for political freedom for Ireland and the end of British rule. Tone had to flee to the USA and to France (1795). He induced France to invade Ireland on two occasions, and was captured during the second expedition. He was tried in Dublin and condemned to be hanged, but committed suicide.
Theobald Wolfe Tone, commonly known as Wolfe Tone (June 20, 1763 – November 19, 1798) was a leading figure in the United Irishmen Irish independence movement and is regarded as the father of Irish republicans.
Early years
Born in Dublin, the son of a coach-maker, Tone studied in the Trinity College, Dublin and attended the Inns of Court in London.
Society of the United Irishmen
In October 1791 Tone converted these ideas into practical policy by founding, in conjunction with Thomas Russell (1767-1803), Napper Tandy and others, the Society of the United Irishmen. It was only when it was obvious that this was unattainable by constitutional methods that the majority of the members adopted the more uncompromising opinions which Wolfe Tone held from the first, and conspired to establish an Irish republic by armed rebellion.
Tone himself admitted that with him hatred of England had always been "rather an instinct than a principle", though until his views should become more generally accepted in Ireland he was prepared to work for reform as distinguished from revolution. Wolfe Tone was a revolutionary whose principles were drawn from the French Convention. Tone was a disciple of Georges Danton and Thomas Paine.
It is important to note the use of the word 'united'. However, Tone's ideas would have been very difficult to apply to the real situation in Ireland as the Catholics had different concerns of their own, these usually being having to pay the tithe bill to the Anglican Church of Ireland and the huge amounts they had to pay in order to lease land from the Protestant Ascendancy. Eighteenth century Ireland was a sectarian state, ruled by a small Anglican minority, over a majority Catholic population, some of whose ancestors had been dispossessed of land and political power in the 17th century Plantations of Ireland. This undermined Wolfe Tone's movement as it suggested that Ireland couldn't be united and that religious prejudices were too strong.
However, democratic principles were gaining ground among the Catholics as well as among the Presbyterians. The active participation of the Catholics in the movement of the United Irishmen was strengthened by the appointment of Tone as paid secretary of the Roman Catholic Committee in the spring of 1792. Despite his desire to emancipate his fellow countrymen, Tone had very little respect for the Catholic faith (a view shared by many subsequent Irish republicans). When the legality of the Catholic Convention in 1792 was questioned by the government, Tone drew up for the committee a statement of the case on which a favourable opinion of counsel was obtained; and a sum of £1500 with a gold medal was voted to Tone by the Convention when it dissolved itself in April 1793. Burke and Grattan were anxious that provision should be made for the education of Irish Roman Catholic priests in Ireland, to preserve them from the contagion of Jacobinism in France; Wolfe Tone, "with an incomparably juster forecast", as Lecky observes, "advocated the same measure for exactly opposite reasons."
Revolutionary in exile
In 1794 the United Irishmen, persuaded that their scheme of universal suffrage and equal electoral districts was not likely to be accepted by any party in the Irish parliament, began to found their hopes on a French invasion. An English clergyman named William Jackson, who had imbibed revolutionary opinions during his long stay in France, came to Ireland to negotiate between the French committee of public safety and the United Irishmen. Tone drew up a memorandum for Jackson on the state of Ireland, which he described as ripe for revolution;
Several of the leading United Irishmen, including Reynolds and Hamilton Rowan, immediately fled the country; Tone, who had not attended meetings of the society since May 1793, remained in
Ireland until after the trial and suicide of Jackson in April 1795. Having friends among the government party, including members of the Beresford family, he was able to make terms with the
government, and in return for information as to what had passed between Jackson, Rowan and himself, he was permitted to emigrate to the United States, where he arrived in May 1795. Tone also
lived briefly in West Chester, Pennsylvania and Downingtown, Pennsylvania.
Tone did not feel himself bound by his agreement with the British government to abstain from further conspiracy; and finding himself at Philadelphia in the company of Reynolds, Rowan, and Tandy, he went to Paris to persuade the French government to send an expedition to invade Ireland. He drew up two memorials representing that the landing of a considerable French force in Ireland would be followed by a general rising of the people, and giving a detailed account of the condition of the country.
Hoche's expedition and the 1798 rebellion
The French Directory, which possessed information from Lord Edward FitzGerald and Arthur O'Connor confirming Tone, prepared to despatch an expedition under Louis Lazare Hoche. Tone, who accompanied it as "Adjutant-general Smith," had the greatest contempt for the seamanship of the French sailors, who were unable to land due to severe gales. Returning to France, Tone served for some months in the French army under Hoche; and in June 1797 he took part in preparations for a Dutch expedition to Ireland, which was to be supported by the French. But the Dutch fleet was detained in the Texel for many weeks by unfavourable weather, and before it eventually put to sea in October, only to be crushed by Duncan in the battle of Camperdown, Tone had returned to Paris; Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom Tone had several interviews about this time, was much less disposed than Hoche had been to undertake in earnest an Irish expedition; When, therefore, Tone urged the Directory to send effective assistance to the Irish rebels, all that could be promised was a number of small raids to descend simultaneously on different points of the Irish coast. Wolfe Tone's brother Matthew was captured, tried by court-martial, and hanged; while Wolfe Tone took part in a third, under Admiral Bompard, with General Hardy in command of a force of about 3000 men, which encountered an English squadron near Lough Swilly on October 12, 1798. Tone, who was on board the Hoche, refused Bompard's offer of escape in a frigate before the action, and was taken prisoner when the Hoche was forced to surrender.
Death
When the prisoners were landed a fortnight later, Sir George Hill recognized Tone in the French adjutant-general's uniform. At his trial by court-martial in Dublin, Tone made a speech avowing his determined hostility to England and his intention "by fair and open war to procure the separation of the Two countries," and pleading in virtue of his status as a French officer to die by the musket instead of the rope.
Support from Lord Kilwarden
A long-standing belief in Kildare is that Tone was the natural son of a neighbouring landlord at Blackhall, near Clane, called Theobald Wolfe. This man was certainly his godfather, and a cousin of Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden, who warned Tone to leave Ireland in 1795. Then when Tone was arrested and brought to Dublin in 1798, and facing certain execution, it was Kilwarden (a senior judge) who granted two orders for Habeas Corpus for his release. The suggestion is that the Wolfes knew that Tone was a cousin; Tone himself may not have known. As a pillar of the Protestant Ascendancy and notorious at the time for his prosecution of William Orr, Kilwarden had no motive whatsoever for trying to assist Tone in 1795 and 1798.
Legacy
"He rises," says William Lecky the 19th century historian, "far above the dreary level of commonplace which Irish conspiracy in general presents.
In his later years he overcame the drunkenness that was habitual to him in youth (a revealing entry in his diary while in France read simply; They were published after his death by his son, William Theobald Wolfe Tone (1791 - 1828), who was educated by the French government and served with some distinction in the armies of Napoleon, emigrating after Waterloo to America, where he died, in New York City, on October 10, 1828 at the age of 37. His mother, Matilda (or Mathilda) Tone also emigrated to the United States, and she is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Tone has been adopted by Irish republicans since the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s as an iconic figure, -the "father of Irish republicanism". In particular, two of his quotes are often referred to by modern republicans:
"To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, that was my aim".
"If the men of property will not support us, they must fall.
Every summer, Irish Republicans of various political and paramilitary groupings hold commemorations at Tone's grave in Bodenstown, County Kildare.
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