Editing Wolfe Tone (section)

=== ''An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland'' ===
The Belfast club had invited Tone as the author of ''An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland.''<ref name=":322" /> It was a tract which they had helped publish and which had appeared, in their honour, as the work of  "a Northern [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]]".<ref name="Milligan32">[https://archive.org/stream/lifeoftheobaldwo00millrich#page/20/mode/2up Milligan, Alice L, ''Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone'', JW Boyd, Belfast, 1898]</ref> With an eventual print-run of 16,000, in Ireland only the ''Rights of Man'' surpassed it in circulation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dickson |first=David |url=https://www.tcd.ie/Secretary/FellowsScholars/discourses/discourses/1999_D%20Dickson%20on%20T%20Wolfe%20Tone.pdf |title=Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), Trinity Monday Discourse, 17 May |date=1999 |publisher=Trinity College |pages=7}}</ref>

The ''Argument'' embraced what had been the most advanced Volunteer position: that the key to constitutional reform was [[Catholic emancipation]].<ref name=":1222" />{{rp|49–50}} So long as "illiberal", "bigoted" and "blind" Irish Protestants indulged their fears of "[[Popery]]" and of Catholic repossession, the "boobies and blockheads" in Parliament and [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle]] would prevail. The choice was stark: either "Reform, the Catholics, justice and liberty" or "an unconditional submission to the present, and every future administration".<ref name=":322">{{Cite book |author=Theobald Wolfe Tone |url=https://celt.ucc.ie//published/E790002/index.html |title=An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland |publisher=H. Joy & Co. |year=1791 |location=Belfast |access-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125002156/https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E790002/index.html |archive-date=25 November 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Tone was himself  suspicious of the Catholic priests (regretting that the Irish people had been "bound" to them by persecution)<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=McBride |first=Ian |title=Eighteenth Century Ireland |publisher=Gill |year=2009 |isbn=9780717116270 |location=Dublin}}</ref>{{rp|369}} and hostile to what he saw as "Papal tyranny"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boyd |first=Andrew |title=Republicanism and Loyalty in Ireland |publisher=Donaldson Archives |year=2001 |location=Belfast |pages=10–11}}</ref> (In 1798, he was to applaud [[Napoleon|Napoleon's]] deposition and imprisonment of [[Pope Pius VI]]).<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kZtmAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA278 |title=Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, vol. 2 |publisher=Gales and Seaton |year=1826 |editor=William Theobald Wolfe Tone |location=Washington D.C. |pages=278}}</ref> But the ''Argument'' presents the [[French Revolution]] as evidence that a Catholic people need not endure [[clericalism]]: in the [[National Assembly (French Revolution)|French National Assembly]], as in the [[United States Congress|American Congress]], "Catholic and Protestant sit equally". It also recalls the [[Patriot Parliament]] summoned by [[James II of England|James II]] in 1689. When Irish Catholics had a clearer title to what had been forfeit not ninety but forty years before (in the [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland|Cromwellian Settlement]]), they did not use the opportunity to pursue the wholesale return of their lost estates. As for the existing Irish Parliament "where no Catholic can by law appear", it was the clearest proof that "Protestantism is no guard against corruption".<ref name=":322" />

In short, the sectarian lessons of [[Irish Rebellion of 1641|1641]] were no long applicable in "the days illumination".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Connolly |first=Sean J. |url= |title=Political Ideas in Eighteenth-century Ireland |date=2000 |publisher=Four Courts |isbn=978-1-85182-556-1 |location=Dublin |pages=166 |language=en}}</ref>