Editing Wolfe Tone (section)

=== Nineteenth century ===
Praising his courage and his "keen" and "lucid" judgement, the otherwise unsympathetic Whig historian [[William Edward Hartpole Lecky|William Lecky]] set Tone "far above the dreary level of commonplace which Irish conspiracy in general presents".<ref>Lecky, W.E. H. (1892)''. History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, cabinet ed.,'' vol 5, London: Longmans, Greens and Co ), p. 79</ref> But set upon a constitutional path by [[Daniel O'Connell]], nationalist opinion in Ireland was slow to embrace his memory. Despite the efforts of his wife [[Matilda Tone|Mathilda]] and their son William who had collected his papers in a two-volume ''Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone'' (Washington in 1826),<ref name=":2" /> in the decades after his death, Tone's name languished in relative obscurity.<ref name=":7" />

In 1843, [[Thomas Davis (Young Irelander)|Thomas Davis]] published in [[The Nation (Irish newspaper)|''The Nation'']] his elegiac poem ''[[Tone's Grave]]'', and with Mathilda's blessing, organised the first [[Bodenstown Graveyard|Bodenstown]] memorial.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Woods |first=C. J. |title=Bodenstown Revisited: the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone, its monuments and pilgrimages |publisher=Four Courts Press |year=2018 |isbn=9781846827389 |location=Dublin}}</ref>''{{rp|18–19}}'' With his fellow [[Young Ireland]]er (and Protestant) [[John Mitchel]], Davis found in Tone an "alternative national hero" to O'Connell, "the Liberator", with whose solicitation of Whig government favour and Catholic [[clericalism]] they were increasingly disillusioned.<ref name=":3" />''{{rp|113–114}}'' In his ''History of Ireland'' (1864),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mitchel |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V-NRAQAAMAAJ |title=The History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the Present Time: Being a Continuation of the History of the Abbé Macgeoghegan |date=1869 |publisher=R. & T. Washbourne |language=en}}</ref> Mitchel drew uncritically from the ''Life'', beginning what historian James Quinn suggests is a "long tradition in nationalist historiography of treating Tone's writing as sacred scripture".<ref name=":3" />''{{rp|114}}''

Mitchel's portrayal of Tone as an uncompromising martyr in the cause of independence was adopted, in turn, by a succeeding generation of "physical-force" republicans, the [[Irish Republican Brotherhood]] (IRB), the "[[Fenian|Fenians".]]<ref name=":8">{{Citation |last=Ollivier |first=Sophie |title=Presence and absence of Wolfe Tone during the centenary commemoration of the 1798 rebellion |date=2001 |url=http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/93197 |work=Rebellion and Remembrance in Modern Ireland, Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland |pages=175–184 |editor-last=Geary |editor-first=Laurence |access-date=2023-12-31 |place=Dublin |publisher=Four Courts Press |hdl=2262/93197 |language=en |isbn=978-1-85182-586-8}}</ref>''{{rp|178}}'' In 1873, their supporters began the practice of annual pilgrimages to Bodenstown.<ref name=":11" />''{{rp|28–29}}'' They saw it as fully in the spirit of Tone to dismiss, as a distraction from the struggle for independence, the [[Irish National Land League|Land League]] and other agrarian agitation.<ref name=":11" />''{{rp|35}}''

In 1898, the centenary commemorations of the rebellion bore "the stamp" of O'Connell's [[Irish Home Rule movement|home-rule]] successors.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Paseta |first=Senia |date=1998 |title=1798 in 1898: The Politics of Commemoration |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29735888 |journal=The Irish Review (1986-) |issue=22 |pages=(46–53) 48–49 |doi=10.2307/29735888 |issn=0790-7850 |jstor=29735888}}</ref> Attempts by [[W. B. Yeats|William Butler Yeats]], president in Dublin of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Association<ref name=":3" />''{{rp|114}}'' and, in Belfast, by [[Alice Milligan]], author of her own six-penny version of Tone's ''Life,''<ref name="McNulty">{{cite journal |last1=McNulty |first1=Eugene |date=2008 |title=The Place of Memory: Alice Milligan, Ardrigh, and the 1898 Centenary |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40344295 |journal=Irish University Review |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=203–2321 |jstor=40344295 |access-date=24 January 2021}}</ref> to celebrate his secular republicanism, were overwhelmed by accounts of 1798 confined to the risings in the south. In these, Tone and other Protestant leaders were effectively sidelined. The focus was on [[County Wexford|Wexford]] where, at [[Battle of Oulart Hill|Oulart Hill]], rebels had been led to their first victory by a Catholic priest, [[John Murphy (priest)|John Murphy]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Turpin |first=John |date=1998 |title=1798, 1898 & the Political Implications of Sheppard's Monument |url=https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/1798-1898-the-political-implications-of-sheppards-monument/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190803233241/https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/1798-1898-the-political-implications-of-sheppards-monument/ |archive-date=3 August 2019 |access-date=3 August 2019 |website=History Ireland}}</ref><ref name=":72">{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Nuala C. |date=1994 |title=Sculpting Heroic Histories: Celebrating the Centenary of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/622447 |journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=78–93 |bibcode=1994TrIBG..19...78J |doi=10.2307/622447 |issn=0020-2754 |jstor=622447}}</ref>  Meanwhile, at Tone's graveside, Connolly claimed that his [[Irish Socialist Republican Party]] "alone" was "in line with the thought of this revolutionary apostle of the United Irishmen".<ref name=":8" />''{{rp|180}}''