Editing Wolfe Tone

{{Short description|Irish revolutionary figure (1763–1798)}}
{{about|the Irish revolutionary leader associated with the [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|rebellion in Ireland of 1798]]|3=Wolf tone (disambiguation)}}

{{Use Hiberno-English|date=October 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Wolfe Tone
| image              = Portrait of Theobald Wolfe Tone.PNG
| caption            = Portrait in the [[National Gallery of Ireland]], Dublin
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1763|06|20|df=y}}
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1798|11|19|1763|06|20|df=y}}
| birth_name         = Theobald Wolfe Tone
| birth_place        = [[Dublin]], [[Kingdom of Ireland]]
| death_place        = Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland
| education          = {{ubl|[[Trinity College Dublin]]|[[King's Inns]]}}
| agent              = [[Society of United Irishmen]], [[Catholic Committee (Ireland)|Catholic Committee and Convention]]
| burial_place       = [[Bodenstown Graveyard]], Sallins, County Kildare, [[Republic of Ireland]]
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[Matilda Tone]]|1785}}
| module             = {{Infobox military person
| embed         = yes
| allegiance    = [[Society of United Irishmen|United Irishmen]]<br>[[First French Republic|French Republic]]       
| battles       = [[Battle of Tory Island]]
}}
}}
{{Irish republicanism|People}}

'''Theobald Wolfe Tone''', posthumously known as '''Wolfe Tone''' ({{langx|ga|Bhulbh Teón}};<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cartlann Téacsanna |url=http://corpas.ria.ie/index.php?fsg_function=3&fsg_id=2071 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709211746/http://corpas.ria.ie/index.php?fsg_function=3&fsg_id=2071 |archive-date=9 July 2021 |access-date=2021-07-09 |website=corpas.ria.ie}}</ref> 20 June 1763{{snd}}19 November 1798), was a revolutionary exponent of Irish independence and is an iconic figure in [[Irish republicanism]]. Convinced that so long as his fellow [[Protestantism in Ireland|Protestants]] feared to make common cause with the [[Catholic Church in Ireland|Catholic]] majority, the [[The Crown|British Crown]] would continue to govern [[Kingdom of Ireland|Ireland]] in the interest of [[England]] and of its [[Protestant Ascendancy|client aristocracy]], in 1791 Tone helped form the [[United Irishmen|Society of United Irishmen]]. Although received in the company of a [[Catholic Committee (Ireland)|Catholic delegation]] by the [[George III|King]] and [[British cabinet|his ministers]] in London, Tone, with other United Irish leaders, despaired of constitutional reform. Fuelled by the popular grievances of rents, tithes and taxes, and driven by [[Martial law|martial-law]] repression, the society developed as an insurrectionary movement. When, in the early summer of 1798, it broke into open [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|rebellion]], Tone was in exile soliciting assistance from the [[French First Republic|French Republic]]. In October 1798, on his second attempt to land in Ireland with French troops and supplies, he was taken prisoner. Sentenced to be hanged, he died from a reportedly self-inflicted wound.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, his name has been invoked, and his legacy disputed, by different factions of [[Irish republicanism|Irish Republicanism]]. These have held annual, but separate, commemorations at his graveside in [[Bodenstown Graveyard|Bodenstown]], [[County Kildare]].

==Early life==
[[File:41- 45 Stafford Street, Dublin.jpg|thumb|44 Stafford Street, Dublin where Wolfe Tone was said to have been born]]
Tone was born on 20 June 1763. His father, Peter Tone, was a prosperous coach-maker who had a farm near [[Sallins]], [[County Kildare]] and adhered to the established [[Church of Ireland|Anglican church]]. Although records are absent, he is said to have been the descendant, from the 17th century, of a [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland|Cromwellian]] soldier ("the first Tone to settle in Ireland")<ref name=":1222">{{Cite book |last=Kee |first=Robert |title=The Most Distressful Country, The Green Flag, Volume 1 |publisher=Quartet Books |year=1976 |isbn=070433089X |location=London |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|47}} and of French [[Huguenot]] refugees.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ó Ruairc |first=Pádraig Óg |date=2019 |title=Take it down from the mast, 'Irish patriots' … |url=https://www.historyireland.com/take-it-down-from-the-mast-irish-patriots/ |access-date=2023-12-20 |website=History Ireland}}</ref> His mother, Margaret Lamport, the daughter of a sea captain in the [[West Indies|West India]] trade,<ref name="Tone2">[https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyoft00toneuoft#page/4/mode/2up Tone, Theobald Wolfe. ''The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone'', Sean O'Faolain ed., Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., London, 1937]</ref><ref name=":042" /> was a Catholic who according to Tone's early biographer, [[Richard Robert Madden|R.R. Madden]], converted to her husband's church only when Tone was already eight years old.<ref>Madden, R. R. (1843), ''The United Irishmen: Their Lives and Times'' London: J. Madden & Company, p. 160.</ref><ref name=":042"/> Tone, nonetheless, was baptised a Protestant, with the name Theobald Wolfe in honour of his [[Godparent|godfather]], Theobald Wolfe of Blackhall, [[County Kildare]], a first cousin of [[Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden]].<ref name=":0" />{{rp|11}}

In 1783, Tone found work as a tutor to Anthony and Robert, younger half-brothers of [[Richard Martin (Irish politician)|Richard Martin]], a [[Irish Patriot Party|Patriot]] member of the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]] for [[Jamestown, County Leitrim]]. Tone fell in love with Martin's well-connected wife, [[Elizabeth Vesey]]. While Tone later wrote that it came to nothing, a Martin biographer suspects that he was the father of the Martins' first child Laetitia born in 1785.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|24–25, 29}}

Tone studied law at [[Trinity College Dublin]], where Kilwarden remembered him as a "sparkling conversationalist and rising talent".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Elliott |first=Marianne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hxISHyhgrCIC |title=Wolfe Tone |date=2012 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-84631-807-8 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|387}} Tone was active in the [[College Historical Society]], which had a record for honing oratory skills and preparing members for a life in politics. He was made a scholar in 1784 and graduated BA in February 1786.<ref>{{cite book |title=Dublin University Calendar, A Special Supplemental Volume for the year 1906–7 |date=1907 |publisher=Hodges, Figgis, and Co. Ltd. |volume=III |location=Dublin}}</ref><ref name="Lee222">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Tone, Theobald Wolfe|volume=57|page=23}}</ref> In 1788, after training in London's [[Middle Temple]], he qualified in Dublin's [[King's Inns]], as a barrister, a profession with which he was already disenchanted.<ref>{{cite archive|item=Students' Ledger 1781–1797|collection=Middle Temple Archive|institution=The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple|item-url=http://archive.middletemple.org.uk/Shared%20Documents/Ledgers/VOL%203%201781-1797%20F.pdf}}</ref>

As a student, he had eloped with [[Matilda Tone|Martha (Matilda) Witherington]], daughter of William and Catherine Witherington (née Fanning) of Dublin.<ref name="Webb3">{{Cite web |title=Webb, Alfred. "Tone, Theobald Wolfe", ''A Compendium of Irish Biography'', MH Gill & Sons, Dublin, 1878 |url=http://www.libraryireland.com/biography/TheobaldWolfeTone.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190630120019/https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/TheobaldWolfeTone.php |archive-date=30 June 2019 |access-date=10 September 2010}}</ref> When they married, Tone was 22, and Matilda was about 16.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tone, Matilda (c. 1769–1849) |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tone-matilda-c-1769-1849 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190526163428/https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tone-matilda-c-1769-1849 |archive-date=26 May 2019 |access-date=26 May 2019 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> With the arrival of their first daughter, and his father's bankruptcy denying him an inheritance, he cast about for new employment. To [[British prime minister|British Prime Minister]] [[William Pitt the Younger|William Pitt]], in 1788 he submitted a plan for a [[Colonia (Roman)|Roman-style military colony]] on [[James Cook|Captain Cook]]'s newly reported [[Hawaiian Islands|Sandwich Islands]].<ref name=":4" />{{rp|83–84}} When this elicited no response, he sought enlistment as a soldier in the [[East India Company]] but applied too late in the year to be shipped to [[south Asia]].<ref name="Tone2" /> Styling himself an "independent Irish [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig"]], he followed the example of a number of college friends and began reporting on the proceedings of the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]] and the conduct of the London-appointed [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle executive]].<ref name=":4" />{{rp|40}}

== United Irishman ==

=== Invitation to Belfast ===
In July 1790 in the visitors' gallery in the [[Irish House of Commons]], Tone met [[Thomas Russell (rebel)|Thomas Russell]], a disillusioned [[Presidency armies|East India Company]] veteran. He found Russell equally critical of the proceedings in the chamber below. Henry Grattan's reform-minded [[Irish Patriot Party|Patriots]] were floundering in their efforts to build upon the legislative independence from England ([[Constitution of 1782|the "Constitution of 1782"]]) that the [[Irish Volunteers (18th century)|Volunteer militia movement]] had helped secure. Tone later described the encounter with Russell as "one of the most fortunate" in his life.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joy |first1=Henry |title=Historical Collections Relating to the Town of Belfast |date=1817 |publisher=G. Berwick |location=Belfast |page=34}}</ref>

With Russell providing the introductions,<ref name=":1222"/>{{rp|49–50}} in October 1791 Tone addressed a small reform club in [[Belfast]].<ref name=":2" />{{rp|378}} Members were Protestant "Dissenters" from the established church, [[Presbyterian Church in Ireland|Presbyterians]] who, notwithstanding sometimes substantial commercial property, had no elected representation. Belfast was a parliamentary [[Rotten and pocket boroughs|borough in the "pocket"]] of the town's proprietor, the [[Marquess of Donegall]]. They had coalesced around the proposal of one of their number, now resident in Dublin, [[William Drennan]], for "a benevolent conspiracy, a plot for the people" dedicated to "the Rights of Man" and to "Real Independence" for Ireland.<ref name="9bSrV22">{{cite web |date=February 2020 |title=Category Archives: William Drennan |url=https://www.irishphilosophy.com/category/person/long-18th-century/william-drennan/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101134817/https://www.irishphilosophy.com/category/person/long-18th-century/william-drennan/ |archive-date=1 November 2020 |access-date=10 May 2020 |website=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |pages=15–16}}</ref> (Tone's diary records [[Thomas Paine]]'s ''[[Rights of Man]]'' as the "[[Quran|Koran]] of Belfast").<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=James S. |date=1980 |title=Propagating the Cause of the United Irishmen |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30090237 |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |volume=69 |issue=273 |pages=(5–23) 8 |jstor=30090237 |issn=0039-3495}}</ref>

=== ''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>

=== First resolutions ===
Calling themselves, at his suggestion, the [[Society of the United Irishmen]], and approving Tone's draft resolutions, his hosts declared that "we have no national government — we are ruled by Englishmen, and the servants of Englishmen". The sole constitutional remedy was "an equal representation of all the people in parliament"—"a complete and radical reform". Others were urged to follow their example: to "form similar Societies in every quarter of the kingdom for the promotion of Constitutional knowledge, the abolition of bigotry in religion and policies, and the equal distribution of the Rights of Man through all Sects and Denominations of Irishmen".<ref name=":0222">{{Citation |last=Napper Tandy |first=James |title=The Society of United Irishmen of Dublin . . [who] have taken as their Declaration that of a similar society in Belfast |date=1791-11-09 |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/england/britdem/events/irishmen.htm |access-date=2023-12-20 |publisher=The Morning Post, 15th December 1791 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":142">{{Cite book |last=Altholz |first=Josef L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zsnwc3fadxAC |title=Selected Documents in Irish History |publisher=M E Sharpe |year=2000 |isbn=0415127769 |location=New York |pages=70}}</ref>

Summarised by [[James Napper Tandy]] as "all Irishmen citizens, all citizens Irishmen", the same resolutions were carried three weeks later at a meeting in Dublin.<ref name=":1222"/>{{rp|53}} Present were [[John Keogh]], [[John Sweetman (United Irishman)|John Sweetman]] and other leading members of the city's [[Catholic Committee (Ireland)|Catholic Committee]].<ref name=":2" />{{rp|418}}

=== Secretary to the Catholic Committee ===
In the new year, 1792, the [[Catholic Committee (Ireland)|Catholic Committee]] appointed Tone as an assistant secretary.<ref name="Milligan32"/> He replaced [[Richard Burke Jr.|Richard Burke]], the son of [[Edmund Burke]] to whose critical ''[[Reflections on the Revolution in France]]'', Paine's ''Rights of Man'' had been a response.<ref name="Webb3" />

In December 1792, with the support and participation of United Irishmen,<ref name=":622">{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=Jim |title=The Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century |publisher=Macmillan Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-333-73256-4 |location=London |pages=74–76}}</ref> Tone helped the Committee in Dublin stage a national Catholic Convention. Elected on a broad, head-of-household, franchise, the "Back Lane Parliament" was seen to challenge the legitimacy of the [[Irish House of Lords|Irish Lords]] and [[Irish House of Commons|Commons]].<ref name=":522">{{Cite journal |last=Woods |first=C. J. |date=2003 |title=The Personnel of the Catholic Convention, 1792-3 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25484204 |journal=Archivium Hibernicum |volume=57 |pages=(26–76) 26–27 |doi=10.2307/25484204 |issn=0044-8745 |jstor=25484204}}</ref> The impression was confirmed when the convention decided to make its appeal directly to London where the government, in advance of war with revolutionary France, had signalled a willingness to solicit Catholic opinion. In January 1793, Tone was included in the Convention delegation that, after being hosted by Presbyterian supporters in Belfast,<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Elliott |first=Marianne |title=The Catholics of Ulster, a History |publisher=Allen Lane, Penguin Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-7139-9464-9 |location=London |pages=236–237}}</ref> was received by [[George III]] at [[Windsor Castle|Windsor]]. It was an audience with which, at the time, Tone believed he had "every reason to be content".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bardon |first1=Jonathan |title=A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes |date=2008 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |isbn=9780717146499 |location=Dublin |pages=296}}</ref>

Through its appointed [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle executive]], the British government pressed the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]] to match [[Parliament of Great Britain|Westminster]]'s [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791|1791 Catholic Relief Act]]. This lifted the sacramental bar to the legal profession, to military commissions and, in the limited number of constituencies not in the "pockets" of either landed grandees or the government, to the property franchise, but not yet to Parliament itself or to senior Crown offices.<ref>Patrick Weston Joyce (1910) An Installment on Emancipation [http://www.libraryireland.com/JoyceHistory/Instalment.php (1790–1793)] p. 867. www.libraryireland.com</ref> But there was a substantial price to be paid for the passage, in April 1793, of similar legislation in Ireland.

In the wake of the 1793 Relief Act, the Catholic Committee voted Tone a sum of £1,500 with a gold medal, subscribed to a statue of the King and, as agreed in London, voted to dissolve.<ref name="Lee222"/> The government then passed legislation raising militia regiments by a compulsory ballot system and outlawing extra-parliamentary conventions and independent militia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Connolly |first=S. J. |title=Oxford Companion to Irish History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-923483-7 |page=611}}</ref> United Irishmen at the time were seeking to revive the Volunteer movement on the model of the [[French National Guard]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blackstock |first=Allan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkayx77nQLQC |title=Double Traitors?: The Belfast Volunteers and Yeomen, 1778-1828 |date=2000 |publisher=Ulster Historical Foundation |isbn=978-0-9539604-1-5 |location=Belfast |pages=11–12 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Garnham |first=Neal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lB1vsTaIKC4C |title=The Militia in Eighteenth-century Ireland: In Defence of the Protestant Interest |date=2012 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=978-1-84383-724-4 |pages=152 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Separatist and conspirator ===
[[File:Wolfe_Tone_sculpture_Bantry.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Statue of Tone, [[Bantry]], [[County Cork]]]]

In May 1794, evidence laid against Tone helped the government justify its proscription of the Society. In July 1793, the [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland]], [[John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare|John FitzGibbon, Earl of Clare]], had seized upon Tone's suggestion in a letter to Russell that independence "would be the regeneration to this country", to denounce all United Irishmen as committed separatists. Tone protested, but only by way of endorsing a connection to England where it did not involve the "gross corruption in the legislature" and the "sacrifice of [Ireland’s] interests to England".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bartlett |first=Thomas |date=2001 |title=Theobald Wolfe Tone: An Eighteenth-Century Republican and Separatist |url=http://www.theirelandinstitute.com/republic/02/pdf/bartlett002.pdf |journal=The Republic |issue=2 |pages=38–16 |via=The Ireland Institute}}</ref>{{rp|45}} In April 1794, he was found to have been meeting in the prison cell of [[Archibald Hamilton Rowan]] (a fellow United man serving time for seditious libel) with [[William Jackson (journalist)|William Jackson]].<ref name=":9222">{{Cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Thomas |title=Ireland, a History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=9780521197205}}</ref>{{rp|211}} An Anglican clergyman radicalised by his experience of revolutionary Paris, Jackson came to Ireland to ascertain to the potential support for a French invasion.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|247}} Tone had drawn up a memorandum for Jackson testifying to the readiness of the country to rise, the Presbyterians being "steady republicans, devoted to liberty" and the Catholics "ready for any change because no change can make them worse".<ref name=":042">{{Cite web |last=Bartlett |first=Thomas |date=2011 |title=Tone, Theobald Wolfe {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/tone-theobald-wolfe-a8590 |access-date=2023-12-21 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref>

An attorney named Cockayne, to whom Jackson had disclosed his mission, betrayed the memorandum to the government.{{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=2}} In April 1794 Jackson was arrested on a charge of treason and dramatically committed suicide during his trial.<ref name="Hull22">{{Cite web |title=Hull, Eleanor. ''A History of Ireland and Her People'', Vol.2, 1931 |url=http://www.libraryireland.com/HullHistory/Revolution1.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116035405/https://www.libraryireland.com/HullHistory/Revolution1.php |archive-date=16 November 2018 |access-date=18 September 2014}}</ref> Rowan, and two other parties to the conspiracy, Napper Tandy and [https://www.dib.ie/biography/reynolds-james-a7643 James Reynolds],  managed to flee the country. None of the incriminating papers seized were in Tone's handwriting. Also, while entertaining hopes of serving [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Francis Rawdon, Lord Moira]], as a private secretary, Tone had not attended meetings of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen since May 1793.<ref name=":042" /> (Rawdon, who had hosted the Catholic delegation in London, had been a rumoured replacement for the [[John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland|Earl of Westmorland]] as [[Lord Lieutenant of Ireland|Viceroy]] in Dublin).<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |last=Richey |first=Rosemary |date=2009 |title=Hastings, Francis Rawdon {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/hastings-francis-rawdon-a3854 |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref>

Tone remained in Ireland until after the trial of Jackson but was advised by Kilwarden that to avoid prosecution he should leave. In an agreement brokered by a former Trinity friend, [[Marcus Beresford (British Army officer, born 1764)|Marcus Beresford]], he was permitted to remove himself to the United States in return for giving an account of his role in the Jackson affair, albeit without breaking confidences or naming names.<ref name=":042" />{{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=2}}

Before leaving, in June 1795 Tone and his family travelled to [[Belfast]]. At the summit of [[Cavehill]] overlooking the town, Tone with [[Thomas Russell (rebel)|Thomas Russell]] and three other members of the movement's [[Ulster]] executive, [[Samuel Neilson]], [[Henry Joy McCracken]] and [[Robert Simms (United Irishmen)|Robert Simms]], took the celebrated pledge "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|247}}<ref name=":1" />{{rp|127}}

Responding to the growing repression, the northern executive had endorsed a "new system of organisation". Local societies were to split so as to remain within a range of 7 to 35 members, and through baronial and county delegate committees, build toward a provincial, and, ultimately, a national, directory.<ref name=":0922">Curtin, Nancy J. (1993), "United Irish organisation in Ulster, 1795–8", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan, ''The United Irishmen: Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion,'' Dublin: Lilliput Press, {{ISBN|0946640955}}, pp. 209–222.</ref> Beginning with an obligation of each society to drill a company, and of three companies to form a battalion, this structure was in turn adapted to military preparation.<ref name=":0922"/><ref>Graham, Thomas (1993), "A Union of Power: the United Irish Organisation 1795–1798",  in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan eds., ''The United Irishmen, Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion'', (pp. 243–255), Dublin, Lilliput, {{ISBN|0946640955}}, pp. 246–247</ref>

In this form, the society replicated rapidly across Ulster and, eventually, from Dublin out into the midlands and the south. As it did so, [[William Drennan]]'s [[Test of the Society of United Irishmen|“test” or pledge]], calling for "a union of power among Irishmen of every religious persuasion",<ref>{{Cite book |title=Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793 |publisher=H. Joy & Co. |year=1794 |editor=William Bruce and Henry Joy |location=Belfast |pages=145}}</ref> was administered to [[artisan]]s, [[Journeyman|journeymen]] and shopkeepers, many of whom had maintained their own [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin]] clubs,<ref name=":0522">{{Cite book |last=McSkimin |first=Samuel |title=Annals of Ulster: from 1790 to 1798 |publisher=Jmes Cleeland, William Mullan & Son |year=1906 |location=Belfast |pages=14–15}}</ref> and to tenant farmers and their market-town allies who had organised against the Anglican [[gentry]] in secret fraternities.<ref name=":722">Elliott, Marianne (1993), "The Defenders in Ulster",  in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan eds., ''The United Irishmen, Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion'', (pp. 222-233), Dubin, Lilliput, {{ISBN|0-946640-95-5}}</ref>{{rp|227–228}} These were the "numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property" that Tone, despairing of his own creed and class, believed would ultimately carry the struggle.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|401}}

== Revolutionary exile ==

=== Impressions of America ===
In August 1795, Tone took up residence in [[Philadelphia]], the then-capital of the United States, where he found himself in the company of Rowan, Tandy, and Reynolds. Tone was instantly disillusioned. He found the Americans to be a "churlish, unsociable race totally absorbed in making money", and was appalled by the reactionary anti-French sentiment of [[George Washington]] and his [[Federalist Party]] allies—a "mercantile peerage"—entrenched in the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]]. His sympathies were with the [[Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republican]] opposition that was beginning to form around [[Thomas Jefferson]] and [[James Madison]].<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Brundage |first=David |date=2010 |title=Matilda Tone in America: Exile, Gender, and Memory in the Making of Irish Republican Nationalism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25660948 |journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=96–111 |jstor=25660948 |issn=1092-3977}}</ref>{{rp|103}}<ref name=":4" />{{rp|16–17}}

Tone bought a farm near [[Princeton, New Jersey]], an area made desirable by the attraction of "a college and some good society", and thought to spend the approaching winter writing a history of the Catholic Committee.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|261}}  But letters received from John Keogh and Thomas Russell persuaded him to resume his revolutionary mission. With the support of the French minister in Philadelphia, [[Pierre Adet]], on New Year's Day 1796, he sailed for France.<ref name=":042"/>

=== Lobbies the French Directory ===
When in February he arrived in Paris, Tone found that, forwarded by Adet, his ''Memorials on the State of Ireland'' had already come to the attention of [[Lazare Carnot]], one of five members of the then governing [[French Directory|Directory]].<ref name=":042" /> Tone was not aware of it at the time, but his picture of Ireland as primed for liberation was being reinforced by the still more enthusiastic reports from two new United militants, formerly in the ranks of Grattan parliamentary opposition, [[Lord Edward FitzGerald|Lord Edward Fitzgerald]] and [[Arthur O'Connor (United Irishman)|Arthur O'Connor]].<ref name=":1222" />{{rp|78–80}}

By May, [[Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke|General Henri Clarke]], the Irish-descendant head of the War Ministry's ''Bureau Topographique'', had drafted an invasion plan. In June, Carnot offered General [[Lazare Hoche]] command of an expedition that would secure “the safety of France for centuries to come".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|280–287}} According to a French sympathiser, Tone's enthusiasm for the venture was qualified by "the express condition that the French should come to Ireland as allies, and should act under direction of the new government, as [[Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau|Rochambeau]] had done in America".<ref>{{cite book |last=Regnault |first=Eugene |title=The Criminal History of the English Government from the First Massacure of the Irish, to the Poisoning of the Chinese, Translated from the French, with Notes by an American |publisher=JS Redfield, Clinton Hall |year=1843 |location=New York |pages=37}}</ref> Tone had already recorded his resolve never to be an "accessory to subjecting my country to the control of France merely to get rid of England".<ref name="writings" />{{rp|154}}

=== Hoche's expedition to Ireland ===
{{See also|French expedition to Ireland (1796)|Irish Rebellion of 1798}}
[[File:Irish-Invasion-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|In ''End of the Irish Invasion; — or – the Destruction of the French Armada'' (1797), [[James Gillray]] caricatured the failure of Hoche's expedition]]

On 15 December 1796, an expedition under Hoche, consisting of forty-three sail and carrying about 14,450 men with a large supply of war material for distribution in Ireland, sailed from [[Brest, France|Brest]].<ref name=":5" />{{rp|367}} Accompanied by Tone, commissioned as a "''[[chef de brigade]]'' in the service of the republic",<ref name=":042"/> it arrived off the coast of Ireland at [[Bantry Bay]] on 22 December 1796. Unremitting storms prevented a landing. Tone remarked that "England [...] had its luckiest escape since the [[Spanish Armada|Armada]]". The fleet returned home and the army intended to spearhead the invasion of Ireland was split up and sent, along with a growing [[Irish Legion]], to fight in other theatres of the [[French Revolutionary Wars]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Come |first=Donald R. |date=1952 |title=French Threat to British Shores, 1793-1798 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1982368 |journal=Military Affairs |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=174–188 |doi=10.2307/1982368 |issn=0026-3931 |jstor=1982368}}</ref>

Tone served for some months in the French army under Hoche, who had become the French Republic's minister of war after his victory against the Austrians at the [[Battle of Neuwied]] on the Rhine in April 1797. In June 1797 Tone took part in preparations for a military expedition to Ireland from the [[Batavian Republic]], the French-client successor state to the [[Dutch Republic|United Netherlands]]. However, the Batavian fleet under Vice-Admiral [[Jan de Winter]] was delayed in the harbour of [[Texel|Texel island]] that summer by unfavourable easterly winds and from mid-August by a British North-Sea fleet blockade. After Tone and other troops assembled had disembarked, it eventually put to sea in the hope of reaching the French naval base at [[Brest, France|Brest]], only to be destroyed by Admiral [[Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan|Adam Duncan]] in the [[Battle of Camperdown]] on October 11, 1797.  Hoche who, straying from Tone's plans for Ireland, had begun to consider descent upon [[Scotland]] (where following the Irish example, radicals had formed the [[Society of the United Scotsmen|United Scotsmen]]),<ref name=":152">McFarland, E. W. (1994), ''Ireland and Scotland in the Age of Revolution''. Edinburgh University Press. {{ISBN|978-0748605392}}</ref>{{rp|143–144}} had died of tuberculosis on September 19.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|343–344}} It was a loss Tone considered "irreparable to the Irish cause".<ref name=":1" />{{rp|329}}

=== Rivalries in Paris ===
Back in Paris, Tone recognised the rising star of [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], but was unable to deflect the [[Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars|conqueror of Italy]] from his grander vision of still greater conquests in the East. In May 1798, with the men and materiel that might have possible another descent upon Ireland, [[French campaign in Egypt and Syria|Bonaparte sailed for Egypt]].<ref name=":0" />{{rp|350–351, 364}} Bonaparte was later to claim that he might have been persuaded to sail for Ireland had the United Irish agents in Paris not constantly quarrelled among themselves.<ref name=":03">{{Cite news |last=Fahey |first=Denis |date=21 September 2015 |title=An Irishman's Diary on Napoleon and the Irish |language=en |newspaper=The Irish Times |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-on-napoleon-and-the-irish-1.2357328 |access-date=2023-12-20}}</ref>

After his return from Bantry, Tone had been joined by a co-conspirator in the Jackson affair, Edward Lewines accredited by the Leinster directory in Dublin.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |last=Woods |first=C. J. |date=2009 |title=Lewines, Edward Joseph |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/lewines-edward-joseph-a4820 |access-date=2024-01-02 |language=en}}</ref> With Lewines heavily reliant on Tone for introductions, Tone was unchallenged as a representative of the Irish cause until, returning again to Paris from Texel, he found Tandy recently arrived from the United States.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|332, 353}}

Willing to exaggerate his military experience, his standing in Ireland, and the readiness of the country to rise, Tandy appeared the more imposing figure. He won over the radical luminaries in exile, Thomas Paine and the Scottish republican and escaped convict, [[Thomas Muir of Huntershill|Thomas Muir]], but also—and critically—new arrivals from Ulster.<ref name=":9" /> These included [[James Coigly]], [https://www.dib.ie/biography/mcmahon-mcmechan-arthur-a5734 Arthur McMahon], [[John Tennant (Irish Legion)|John Tennent]] and [[Bartholomew Teeling]]. Witness to [[Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake|General Lake]]'s "dragooning of Ulster", they insisted that the movement in Ireland had to act, if necessary in advance of the French, or face the break-up of its entire system. It was an outlook (further encouraged by Coigly's reports of radical societies ready to act in England and Scotland)<ref name=":152"/>{{rp|184–185}} more in keeping with the policy of the French. After Bantry Bay, they were waiting for reports of a rising in Ireland before again hazarding their own troops.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|339}}

== 1798 ==

=== Bompart's expedition to Ireland and arrest ===
When, in the spring of 1798, the Leinster directory bent under the pressure of the same martial-law measures applied to the south and called for a general insurrection on May 23, Tone was in the dark.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|364–367}} The most that he and the other Irish lobbyists had won from the Directory was the undertaking that once the news was received that the country had risen, they would seek to break through to the more open Atlantic coast of Ireland and land smaller numbers of men and supplies. In late August 1798, General [[Jean Joseph Amable Humbert|Jean Humbert]] succeeded in landing with a force of approximately 1,000 near [[Killala]], [[County Mayo]]. He advanced into the country but, once it was clear that the main rebel conjunctions in Ulster and Leinster had already been decisively defeated, he surrendered. Among the Irish prisoners taken were Teeling and Tone's brother Matthew. They were both [[court-martial]]led and hanged.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Woods |first=C. J. |date=2009 |title=Tone, Mathew {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/tone-mathew-a8589#:~:text=Found%20guilty%20by%20the%20court,daughter,%20raised%20by%20Margaret%20Tone. |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref>

A second still smaller expedition, accompanied by Tandy, touched land in [[Donegal (town)|Donegal]] on 16 September but departed on the news of Humbert's defeat. Six days before, Tone had embarked with Admiral [[Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart]] and General [[Jean Hardy]] in command of a force of about 3,000 men. They encountered a British squadron at [[Buncrana]] on [[Lough Swilly]] on 12 October 1798. Tone, on the ship ''Hoche'', refused Bompart's offer of escape in a [[frigate]]. In the ensuing [[battle of Tory Island]] he commanded one of the ship's batteries until, isolated and crippled after several hours of bombardment, the ship struck and Bompart surrendered.{{sfn|McNeill|1911|p=3}} Two weeks later, held with his fellow French officers in the privy-quarters of [[Richard Lambart, 7th Earl of Cavan|Lord Cavan]]'s in Letterkenny, he was recognised by [[Sir George Hill, 2nd Baronet|Sir George Hill]], a Member of Parliament (and a leading member of the new [[Orange Order]]) and was arrested.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McGinley |first=John |date=2021 |title=The Battle of Tory Island – the last engagement of the United Irishman rebellion of 1798 – The Irish Story |url=https://www.theirishstory.com/2021/03/08/the-battle-of-tory-island-the-last-engagement-of-the-united-irishman-rebellion-of-1798/ |access-date=2024-01-02 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

=== Trial and death ===
At his court-martial in Dublin on 8 November 1798, Tone defended his desire to separate Ireland from Great Britain “in fair and open war" and his honour.<ref name="sampson2">{{cite web |year=1817 |title=Speech of Theobold Wolf Tone, To the Court-Martial, assembled to pass sentence on his life in ''Memoirs of William Sampson'' |url=http://rewinn.com/8043.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927012854/http://www.rewinn.com/8043.html |archive-date=27 September 2007 |access-date=8 April 2007 |edition=2nd}}</ref>

{{Pull quote|I entered into the service of the French Republic with the sole view of being useful to my country.  To contend against British Tyranny, I have braved the fatigues and terrors of the field of battle; I have sacrificed my comfort, have courted poverty, have left my wife unprotected, and my children without a father.  After all I have done for a sacred cause, death is no sacrifice.  In such enterprises, everything depends on success:  Washington succeeded – [[Tadeusz Kościuszko|Kosciusko]] failed.  I know my fate, but I neither ask for pardon nor do I complain.
}}

His one "regret" was the "very great atrocities" committed in the course of the summer rebellion, "on both sides". For "a fair and open war" he had been prepared; but if that had "degenerated into a system of assassination, massacre, and plunder" he did "most sincerely lament it".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|393}}

His one request was that, as a ranking French officer, he might  "die the death of a soldier" and be shot. The request was denied: found guilty of treason he was condemned to hang on the 12th. On what was to be the morning of his execution he was found with a wound to his throat, the result—although later a subject of some speculation<ref>{{Cite news |last=Balls |first=Richard |date=Feb 14, 1997 |title=Surgeon's report reopens debate on Tone |newspaper=The Irish Times |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/surgeon-s-report-reopens-debate-on-tone-1.42584 |url-status=live |access-date=10 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414213552/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/surgeon-s-report-reopens-debate-on-tone-1.42584 |archive-date=14 April 2019}}</ref><ref>O'Donnell, Patrick (1997), "Wolfe Tone: Suicide or Assassination", ''Irish Journal of Medical Science'', no. 57.</ref>—of an apparent attempt to take his own life.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ó Cathaoir |first=Brendan |date=17 March 2008 |title=The death of Wolfe Tone |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/the-death-of-wolfe-tone-1.904217 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201006212057/https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/the-death-of-wolfe-tone-1.904217 |archive-date=6 October 2020 |access-date=18 July 2020 |publisher=Irish Times}}</ref> The story goes that the doctor who bound the wound told Tone that if he talked it would re-open and he would bleed to death, to which Tone replied: "I can yet find words to thank you sir; it is the most welcome news you could give me. What should I wish to live for?".<ref>{{cite book |last=Tone |first=Theobald Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EJMEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA314 |title=The Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone |author2=William Theobald Wolfe Tone |publisher=Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot |year=1831 |location=London |pages=314–316}}</ref>

Theobald Wolfe Tone died on 19 November 1798 at the age of 35 in the Provost Prison of the [[Collins Barracks, Dublin|Royal Barracks, Dublin]], not far from where he was born. He is buried in the family plot in [[Bodenstown Graveyard|Bodenstown, County Kildare]], near his birthplace at Sallins, and his grave is in the care of the [[National Graves Association]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-06-20 |title=Remembering how Wolfe Tone's grave was saved on his birthday |url=https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/wolfe-tone-grave-saved-ballad |access-date=2023-12-23 |website=IrishCentral.com |language=en}}</ref>

==Political vision==
[[File:One of the inscribed flagstones on the steps leading to the grave.jpg|thumb|left|One of the inscribed flagstones on the steps leading to the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone]]

=== Equality and representation ===
Later generations of Irish republicans have broadly been content with Tone's own succinct summary of his purpose:

<blockquote>To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England (the never failing source of our political evils) and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland: to abolish the memory of all past dissension; and to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denomination of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Tone |first=Theobald Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxQvAAAAMAAJ |title=Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Volume I |date=1827 |publisher=H. Colburn |location=London |pages= |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|64}}</blockquote>

In the autobiography he began to compose in France, Tone claimed that already in 1790 he had advanced "the question of separation with scarcely any reserve".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tone |first=Theobald Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IjQ9Plqyd8AC |title=The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-98: America, France, and Bantry Bay, August 1795 to December 1796 |date=1998 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-820879-2 |pages=284 |language=en}}</ref> While not yet rejecting a personal union of crowns, in his tract ''The Spanish War'' (1790) he had disputed Ireland's obligation uphold England in a colonial dispute with Spain and had called for a separate Irish navy.<ref name=":5" />{{rp|372}}

Beginning with [[James Connolly]], who maintained that Tone would have been "a rebel even had he been an Englishman",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Connolly |first=James |date=1898 |title=the Men We Honour |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1898/08/menhonor.htm |journal=Workers' Republic |issue=13 August}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Connolly |first=James |date=2021 |title=James Connolly on Wolfe Tone |url=https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/james-connolly-on-wolfe-tone/ |access-date=2023-12-26 |website=the irish revolution |language=en}}</ref> left-wing republicans have suggested that for Tone, Irish independence was part of a broader radical vision.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beresford Ellis |first=Peter |title=History of the Irish Working Class |publisher=Victor Gollancz |year=1972 |isbn=9780575006263 |location=74, 79}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cronin |first1=Sean |title=Freedom the Wolfe Tone Way |last2=Roche |first2=Richard |publisher=Anvil Book |year=1973 |isbn=978-0900068188 |location=Dublin |pages=55, 73}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Greaves |first=C. Desmond |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xccKAQAAMAAJ |title=Theobald Wolfe Tone and the Irish Nation |date=1991 |publisher=Fulcrum Press |isbn=978-1-872993-02-7 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=CYM Committee |date=2018 |title=Tone Reloaded: Commemoration of a Revolutionary Legacy - Connolly Youth Movement |url=https://cym.ie/2018/08/02/tone-reloaded-commemoration-of-a-revolutionary-legacy/ |access-date=2023-12-27 |website=cym.ie |language=en-GB}}</ref> Typically reference is made to his diary entry for 11 March 1796: "If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, ''the men of no property".<ref name="writings" />{{rp|107}}'' He is also recorded as telling the French that a revolution in Ireland "was not to be made for the people of property".<ref name="writings" />''{{rp|120}}''

While acknowledging the need for their support, it is not clear that Tone wished those "of no property" to take the initiative. Russell's diary records a despondent conversation in January 1794 in which Tone remarked: there is "nothing to be expected from this country except from the ''[[Sans-culottes|sans culottes]]'', who are too ignorant for any thinking man to wish to see in power".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|221–222}}

Tone did not abandon [[Whig constitutionalism]], so long as the talk was of reform. In 1792, in an address to Volunteers, he disclaimed any intention of invading the "just prerogatives of our monarch" or the "constitutional powers of the peers of the realm".''<ref name="writings" />{{rp|218}}'' As a condition of Catholic emancipation he had even offered that the greater part of a non-confessional Irish electorate be disenfranchised. Anticipating the terms under which Catholics were eventually admitted to a [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|United Kingdom parliament]] in 1829,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=R.F. |title=Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 |date=1988 |publisher=Allen Lane |isbn=0713990104 |location=London |pages=301–302}}</ref> his ''Argument'' proposed raising the property (or tenure equivalent) threshold for the vote fivefold to match the English ten-pound freehold. As [[Daniel O'Connell]] was to do in 1829,<ref name="Hoppen">{{cite book |last1=Hoppen |first1=K. Theodore |title=Ireland since 1800: conflict and conformity |date=1999 |publisher=Longman |isbn=9780582322547 |edition=Second |location=London |pages=22, 24}}</ref> Tone suggested that raising the qualification would allow the "sound and respectable part of the Catholic community" to recover its proper place and weight in society.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Gillen |first=Ultán |url=https://research.tees.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/16053350/Democracy_religion_and_the_Political_Thought_of_Theobald_Wolfe_Tone_submitted.pdf |title=Democracy, Religion, and the Political Thought of Theobald Wolfe Tone |publisher=Teesside University |year=2020}}</ref>{{rp|11}}More than this, it would also purge the Protestant interest of "the gross and feculent mass" of [[forty-shilling freeholders]]. As these could be driven to the polls by their landlords, "as much their property as the sheep or the bullocks which they brand with their names",<ref name=":322" /> Wolfe may have reasoned that was lost in democratic principle was gained in the practical check on the ability of the [[Landed gentry|squirearchy]] to swamp county-seat elections.<ref name=":6" />{{rp|11}}

Even when set on an insurrectionary path, Tone expressed no wish to unsettle property in Ireland. As "petty despots",<ref>{{Cite book |title=Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone: Memoirs, Journals and Political Writings, Compiled and Arranged by William T.W. Tone, 1826 |publisher=Lilliput Press |year=1996 |isbn=9781901866056 |editor-last=Bartlett |editor-first=Thomas |location=Dublin |pages=606–607}}</ref> unable to see beyond "their rent rolls, their places, their patronage and their pensions",''<ref name="writings" />{{rp|248}}'' he suggested to General Clarke that the gentry ran the risk of a "general massacre and a distribution of their entire property".<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|166}}'' This he would hope to avoid, for not only would he abhor the bloodshed, but he believed that the prospect of retaining property in Ireland might blunt resistance. He recommended that the French on landing, and a provisional convention that would then be called, offer not only resident landowners but also to the [[Absentee landlord|absentee]] lords in England, security for their estates.<ref name=":0" />''{{rp|281}}'' General Hoche could otherwise reckon "on all the opposition" that men of property could give him.<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|167}}''

Tone approved the advance of peasant proprietorship under the French Republic,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Thomas |url= |title=Theobald Wolfe Tone: No. 10 |date=1997-10-01 |publisher=Dundalgan Press |isbn=978-0-85221-133-5 |pages= |language=English}}</ref>{{rp|120, 494}} and may broadly have shared Jefferson's faith in the republican virtues of independent smallholders.<ref name=":4">{{Cite thesis |title=Developments in the Political Thought of Theobald Wolfe Tone |url=https://oro.open.ac.uk/71421/ |publisher=The Open University |date=2020 |degree=phd |doi=10.21954/ou.ro.000116fd |language=en |first=Katherine |last=Lucas}}</ref>{{rp|125–126}} But he insisted that the United society he had known in Ireland had never "entertained" ideas of "a distribution of property and an agrarian law", and he advanced no such scheme himself.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|127–128}} He ventured no more than relief from that "pest on agriculture", the tithes levied on top of rents by the landlord's established church.''<ref name="writings" />{{rp|386}}''

In general, Tone appears to have followed the resolve of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen to "attend those things in which we all agree, [and] to exclude those in which we differ", and consequently to avoid directly engaging questions of economic inequality.<ref name=":124">{{Cite journal |last=Quinn |first=James |date=1998 |title=The United Irishmen and Social Reform |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30008258 |journal=Irish Historical Studies |volume=31 |issue=122 |pages=(188–201) 191–192 |doi=10.1017/S0021121400013900 |issn=0021-1214 |jstor=30008258 |s2cid=164022443}}</ref><ref name=":14">{{Cite journal |last=Curtin |first=Nancy J. |date=1985 |title=The Transformation of the Society of United Irishmen into a Mass-Based Revolutionary Organisation, 1794-6 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30008756 |journal=Irish Historical Studies |volume=24 |issue=96 |pages=463–492 |doi=10.1017/S0021121400034477 |issn=0021-1214 |jstor=30008756 |s2cid=148429477}}</ref> From France, he wrote tracts addressed to the weavers of the [[Liberties, Dublin|Liberties in Dublin]]. These expressed sympathy for their hardships.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Quinn |first=James |date=2000 |editor-last= |editor-first= |editor2-last= |editor2-first= |editor3-last= |editor3-first= |editor4-last= |editor4-first= |editor5-last= |editor5-first= |editor6-last= |editor6-first= |editor7-last= |editor7-first= |title=Theobald Wolfe Tone and the Historians |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30007020 |journal=Irish Historical Studies |volume=32 |issue=125 |pages=113–128 |doi=10.1017/S0021121400014681 |jstor=30007020 |s2cid=163810571 |issn=0021-1214}}</ref>{{rp|126}} but  [[James Hope (Ireland)|James Hope]], the self-educated weaver who organised in the Liberties,<ref name="Whelan">{{cite web |last1=Whelan |first1=Fergus |date=24 September 2011 |title=Jemmy Hope: the most Radical United Irishman |url=https://www.lookleft.ie/2011/09/jemmy-hope-the-most-radical-united-irishman/ |access-date=22 November 2020 |publisher=Look Left}}</ref> did not place Tone alongside his friend Russell as one of those “few” United Irish leaders who "perfectly" understood the real causes of social disorder: "the conditions of the labouring class".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Madden |first=Robert |title=Antrim and Down in '98 : The Lives of Henry Joy m'Cracken, James Hope, William Putnam m'Cabe, Rev. James Porter, Henry Munro |publisher=Cameron, Ferguson & Co. |year=1900 |location=Glasgow |pages=108}}</ref>

As was the case with the Dublin society,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=James S. |date=1980 |title=Propagating the Cause of the United Irishmen |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30090237 |journal=Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review |volume=69 |issue=273 |pages=(5–23) 9 |issn=0039-3495 |jstor=30090237}}</ref> Tone proposed an independent and representative government as a sufficient promise of redress regardless of the grievance.<ref name=":124" /> For Tone, the promise appears to have been not, scarcely conceptualised, agrarian or labour reform, but the promotion of education (Tone imagined the polymath [[Whitley Stokes (physician)|Whitley Stokes]] as the head of a national system)<ref name=":04">{{Cite web |last=Webb |first=Alfred |date=1878 |title=Dr. Whitley Stokes - Irish Biography |url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/DrWhitleyStokes.php |access-date=2021-12-30 |website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref> and a vigorous mercantile policy in defence of Irish trade and industry.<ref name=":0" />''{{rp|314, 328}}''<ref name=":4" />{{rp|56}}

It is matter of speculation as to what Tone, who prided himself on being a political pragmatist, would have found expedient in an Irish republic.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":6" />''{{rp|4, 7}}'' In France, he criticised the Directory, not for [[Constitution of the Year III|a constitution]] that reintroduced the property franchise abolished with the monarchy, but for suffering themselves "to be insulted in the most outrageous manner" by the unsanctioned press. "It is less dangerous", he wrote, "for a government to be feared, or even hated, than despised".''<ref name="writings2">{{cite book |title=The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763-98: Volume III |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=0198208804 |editor1-last=Moody |editor1-first=T. W. |edition= |page= |editor2-last=McDowell |editor2-first=R.B. |editor3-last=Woods |editor3-first=C.J.}}</ref>{{rp|70–71}}'' His recent biographer, [[Marianne Elliott (historian)|Marianne Elliott]], notes that Tone applauded the Directory's suppression in April 1796 of [[François-Noël Babeuf|Babeuf's]] [[Conspiracy of the Equals|proto-socialist conspiracy.]]<ref name=":0" />''{{rp|276}}'' This is consistent with what she concludes was a commitment to equality in Tone that did not truly extend beyond the abolition of aristocratic and confessional privilege.<ref name=":0" />''{{rp|82–83}}''

=== Monarchy or republic ===
Questioning whether Tone had "any sustained interest in republicanism as a form of government", the popular historian Andrew Boyd notes that, at the time the United Irishmen were formed, Tone confessed that his objective was not "the establishment of a republic" but to "secure the independence of Ireland under any form of government".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boyd |first=Andrew |date=1998 |title=Wolfe Tone: Republican Hero or Whig Opportunist? |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Wolfe+Tone%3A+Republican+hero+or+Whig+opportunist%3F-a020770486 |journal=History Today |volume=48 |issue=6 |pages=14–21}}</ref> Four years later when, believing that "the people of Ireland were in general very ignorant", [[Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke|General Clarke]] asked whether "we might choose a king", Tone's response was notably pragmatic.<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|164}}''

The only person with the least chance of fulfilling such a role, in Tone's view, was [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Lord Moira]] (after whom Tone had named his fourth child Francis Rawdon Tone).<ref name=":22"/> But the Patriot aristocrat had "blown his reputation to pieces by accepting a command against France".<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|165}}'' Tone's larger objection to an Irish crown was that the Dissenters, who he was in no doubt would "direct the public sentiment in framing a government", were "thoroughly enlightened and sincere republicans".<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|164–166}}'' He thought it "absurd" to suggest, as Clarke had done in his instructions to Hoche, that a member of the [[House of Stuart]] could be found who would be agreeable to all parties.<ref name="Tone2" />''{{rp|140}}''

To Tone's dismay from Humbert's account of his misadventure in September 1798, the Directory concluded that the Irish were indeed more [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] than Jacobin: that they might be compared with the devoutly Catholic and royalist peasantry they had battled at home in the [[Vendee peasant rising|Vendée]]. Tone had again to rebuff the suggestion of a [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] restoration—that the Catholic Pretender, [[Henry Benedict Stuart]], be recognised as Henry IX, [[Monarchy of Ireland|King of the Irish]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Pittock |first=Murray GH |title=Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521030274}}</ref>{{rp|210}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Aston |first=Nigel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r7yVDUMVITkC |title=Christianity and Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1830 |date=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-46592-2 |pages=222 |language=en}}</ref>[[File:WolfeToneStatue.JPG|thumb|upright|''Wolfe Tone'' (1967) statue on [[St. Stephen's Green]], Dublin by [[Edward Delaney]]]]

==Legacy==

=== 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}}''

=== Twentieth century ===
In 1912, the IRB veteran [[Tom Clarke (Irish republican)|Tom Clarke]] revived the lapsed commemorations at Bodenstown.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rogers |first=Peter |date=2022 |title=The importance of Bodenstown |url=https://republican-news.org/current/news/2022/07/the_importance_of_bodenstown.html |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=republican-news.org}}</ref> Speaking at the graveside in 1913, [[Patrick Pearse]] described the site as the "holiest place in Ireland", for "though many had testified in death to the truth of Ireland’s claim to nationhood; Wolfe Tone was the greatest of all that had made that testimony; he was the greatest of Ireland’s dead".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Murphy |first=Eamon |date=2014 |title=Patrick Pearse and Na Fianna Eireann Scouts at the Wolfe Tone pilgrimage to Bodenstown in June 1913 |url=https://fiannaeireannhistory.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/patrick-pearse-and-na-fianna-eireann-scouts-at-the-wolfe-tone-pilgrimage-to-bodenstown-in-june-1913/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=The History of Na Fianna Éireann |language=en}}</ref> But while Tone many have been an "apostle" for those who rallied to [[Proclamation of the Irish Republic|the republic proclaimed]] by Pearse, Clarke and Connolly in 1916, writers with influence in the [[Irish Free State|new Irish state]] after 1922 dismissed him as not being Irish enough.<ref name=":3" />''{{rp|115}}'' The "[[Irish-Ireland|Irish Irelander]]" [[D. P. Moran]], described Tone as "a Frenchman born in Ireland of English parents", while in a work entitled ''Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen—for or against Christ?'' (1937),<ref>McCabe, Leo (1937). ''Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen for or against Christ? (1791-1798)''. London: Heath Cranton, 1937.</ref> Leo McCabe (the [[Jesuits|Jesuit]], Br Denis Peter Fennell)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Book by Leo McCabe (Br Denis Peter Fennell SJ) entitled 'Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen For or Against Christ (1791 - 1798)' - Irish Jesuit Archives |url=https://www.jesuitarchives.ie/book-by-leo-mccabe-br-denis-peter-fennell-sj-entitled-wolfe-tone-and-the-united-irishmen-for-or-against-christ-1791-1798 |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=www.jesuitarchives.ie}}</ref> associated the veneration of Tone with nothing less than a Judeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy to destroy Christianity.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Farrlly |first=R. |date=1998 |title=Wolfe Tone and Leo McCabe |url=https://www.historyireland.com/wolfe-tone-and-leo-mccabe/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=History Ireland}}</ref> Conversely there were those who, stressing his work as an agent of the Catholic Committee, sought to adapt Tone to the state's Catholic-inflected nationalism. [[Aodh de Blácam]], a close [[Fianna Fáil]] partisan of [[Éamon de Valera]], insisted that Tone's "attachment to his mother's Catholic people was with him to the end".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blácam |first=Aodh De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tsWCAAAAIAAJ |title=The Life Story of Wolfe Tone: Set in a Picture of His Times |date=1935 |publisher=Talbot Press |location=Dublin |pages=165 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Anglo-Irish Treaty|Anti-Treaty republicans]] were able to gather at the graveside only after the official, state-organised, demonstration involving martial displays by the [[National Army (Ireland)|National Army]].<ref name=":11" />''{{rp|103}}'' Once De Valera's [[Fianna Fáil]] gained office in 1932, pro-Treaty [[Fine Gael]] abandoned Tone's graveside for an annual ceremony at [[Béal na Bláth]], in [[County Cork]], where [[Michael Collins (Irish leader)|Michael Collins]] met his death in an ambush in August 1922.<ref name=":11" />''{{rp|141}}''

Tensions surrounding Tone's legacy were evident in the 1934 Bodenstown commemorations. A [[Republican Congress]] "James Connolly" contingent from the Protestant [[Shankill Road]] in Belfast (accompanied by [[Jack White (Irish socialist)|Jack White]] and by [[Winifred Carney]]) was blocked on their approach to the graveside and their "red" banner''—"''Break the Connection with Capitalism"''—''torn by [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|IRA]] stewards. Each side accused the other of dishonouring, and misappropriating, Tone's memory.<ref name=":8" />''{{rp|130}}''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Byrne |first=Patrick |url=https://www.leftarchive.ie/workspace/documents/22057-ir-rep-cong-94.pdf |title=The Republican Congress Revisited |publisher=Connolly Association Pamphlet |year=1994 |isbn=0-9522317-0-0 |location=Dublin |pages=23–24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hanley |first=Brian |date=1999 |title=The Storming of Connolly House |url=https://www.historyireland.com/the-storming-of-connolly-house/ |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=History Ireland}}</ref>

Arising out of the bi-centenary celebrations of Tone's birth in 1963, left-leaning elements of the IRA formed the [[Wolfe Tone Societies]].<ref name="NAI">[http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/nai/1965/nai_TSCH-98-6-101_1965-nd.pdf National Archives Ireland] – Tuairisc: The news-letter of the Wolfe Tone Society, Number One</ref><ref name="CAIN">[https://books.google.com/books?id=D07FBjetYM0C&dq=Muintir+Wolfe+Tone&pg=PA179 CAIN] – Century of Endeavour</ref> The WTS opposed the [[Republic of Ireland]]'s entry into the [[European Economic Community]] and protested the [[Vietnam War]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Treacy |first1=Matt |title=The IRA 1956–69: Rethinking the Republic |date=2013 |publisher=Manchester University Press}}</ref> A key figure in the WTS was [[Roy Johnston]], of [[Protestant]] background, who (In the tradition of the Republican Congress) looked to recruit Protestants in [[Northern Ireland]] to the cause of national unity in a workers' republic.<ref>[[Richard English|English, Richard]] (2003). ''Armed Struggle;– A History of the IRA'', MacMillan, London 2003,  pp. 85-86. ISBN 1-4050-0108-9</ref><ref>[http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/crights/nicra/nicra781.htm CAIN] – "We Shall Overcome" .... The History of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland 1968 – 1978 by NICRA (1978)</ref>

Following his bi-centenary, a memorial to Tone was commissioned for [[St Stephen's Green]] in Dublin.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Roisin |date=2015 |title=Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks: 1964 – Wolfe Tone, by Edward Delaney |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/modern-ireland-in-100-artworks-1964-wolfe-tone-by-edward-delaney-1.2393337 |access-date=2023-12-30 |newspaper=The Irish Times |language=en}}</ref> The work by [[Edward Delaney]] was unveiled in 1967 by Éamon de Valera. Having, in the name of Tone, opposed the [[dominion]]-status [[Irish Free State]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=CAIN: Issues: Politics: Speech by Bertie Ahern at the Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Bodenstown, 16 October 2005 |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/dott/ba161005.htm |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=cain.ulster.ac.uk}}</ref> De Valera took the occasion to declare that, while still to achieve national unity, the [[Republic of Ireland]] of which he was now president was that for which Tone had "longed for and worked for”''.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wolfe Tone Statue Unveiled |url=https://www.rte.ie/archives/2022/1114/1335982-wolfe-tone-statue-unveiled/ |access-date=2023-12-31 |website=RTÉ Archives |language=en}}</ref>

In October 1969, the [[Ulster loyalism|Ulster loyalist]] [[Ulster Volunteer Force|UVF]] claimed responsibility for bombing and damaging the Bodenstown memorial to "the traitor Wolfe Tone".<ref name=":12">{{Cite news |date=11 July 2013 |title=Unveiling at Tone's Grave |url=https://kildare.ie/ehistory/index.php/unveiling-at-tones-grave/ |work=The Leinster Leader}}</ref><ref name= BN>{{Cite news |date=27 Dec 1969 |title=Security Checks After Dublin Incidents. Big Border Hunt Follows Blast |work=[[Belfast Newsletter]] |pages=1}}</ref> In June 1975, the UVF sought to derail a train near Sallins carrying 250 [[Official Irish Republican Army|Official IRA]] supporters to the annual commemoration, and murdered a witness to their attempt.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sutton |first=Malcolm |title=CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths |url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=22&month=06&year=1975 |website=cain.ulst.ac.uk}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Sunday World on the 1975 murder of Christy Phelan at Sallins, County Kildare |url=http://www.michael.donegan.care4free.net/sunday_world150204.htm |access-date=2024-04-01 |website=www.michael.donegan.care4free.net}}</ref>

In 1998, the rebellion's bicentenary, [[Sinn Féin]] president [[Gerry Adams]] and [[Taoiseach]], [[Bertie Ahern]] made separate appearances at Bodenstown to claim Tone's sanction for their endorsement of the [[Good Friday Agreement|"Good Friday" Belfast Agreement]]. Acknowledging "with pride" the roots of its republicanism in "the mainly Presbyterian United Irish movement,” Adams declared Sinn Féin equal to the task Tone had set for those truly committed to a sovereign Ireland: to "cast off the manacles of religious sectarianism and 'abolish the memory of past dissensions'".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bodenstown Speech by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams 1998 |url=https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/15185 |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=www.sinnfein.ie}}</ref> Ahern offered that in that Article 1, the Agreement conceded the "central tenet" of Tone's vision and that of all those who in succeeding generations "worked for reconciliation and peace between the different traditions on this island".<ref>{{Cite web |title=CAIN: Issues: Politics: Speech by Bertie Ahern at the Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Bodenstown, 16 October 2005 |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/dott/ba161005.htm |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=cain.ulster.ac.uk}}</ref> It states: "that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by peaceful agreement, between the two parts but without external impediment, to exercise the right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South".<ref>{{Cite web |date=1998 |title=Good Friday Agreement: Agreement reached in the multi-party negotiations |url=https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/good-friday-agreement.pdf |access-date=5 January 2024 |website=Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Ireland}}</ref>

Two years later, Ahern used the same occasion to threaten extraordinary measures against those he described as capable of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter "only in death".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2000-10-15 |title=Ahern pledges to tackle republican dissidents |url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ahern-pledges-to-tackle-republican-dissidents/26106777.html |access-date=2024-01-06 |website=Independent.ie |language=en}}</ref> [[Dissident republican]]s, who saw rather a cementing of [[Partition of Ireland|partition]], had been holding their own Bodenstown rallies.<ref name=":10">{{Cite web |date=2013-08-04 |title=Wolfe Tone / Bodenstown |url=https://republicansinnfein.org/bodenstown/ |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=Republican SINN FÉIN Poblachtach |language=ga}}</ref> From Tone, they claimed a "continuing legacy” of struggle against “British occupation“.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CAIN: Issues: Politics: Republican Network for Unity, Bodenstown Address, (20 June 2007) |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/rnu/2007-06-20_rnu.htm |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=cain.ulster.ac.uk}}</ref>

==Descendants==
Of Tone's four children, three died prematurely. His eldest child, Maria Tone (1786–1803; died in Paris) and his youngest child, Francis Rawdon Tone (1793–1806) both died of [[tuberculosis]]. Another son, Richard Tone (born between 1787 and 1789) died in infancy.<ref name="writings">{{cite book |title=The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763-98: Volume II |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=0198208804 |editor1-last=Moody |editor1-first=T. W. |page= |editor2-last=McDowell |editor2-first=R.B. |editor3-last=Woods |editor3-first=C.J.}}</ref>

Only his son William Theobald Wolfe Tone (b. 1789/91) survived to adulthood. Raised in France by his mother after Tone's death, William was appointed a cadet in the Imperial School of Cavalry in 1810 on Napoleon's orders. He was a naturalised French citizen on 4 May 1812. In January 1813 he was made sub-lieutenant in the 8th Regiment of Chasseurs and joined the Grand Army in Germany. His [[nom de guerre]] was the punning ''le petit loup'' – the little wolf. He was at the battles of Löwenberg, Goldberg, Dresden, Bauthen, Mühlberg, and Aachen. Following the [[Battle of Leipzig]], in which he received lance wounds, he was promoted to lieutenant and was decorated with the [[Legion of Honour]].<ref name=writings/>

After the defeat of Napoleon at the [[Battle of Waterloo]], William emigrated to the New York, where studied law with the United Irish veteran and abolitionist, [[William Sampson (lawyer)|William Sampson]], married his daughter, and in 1819 won a commission a captain in the United States Army. He died on 11 October 1828 at the age of 37, survived by his only child, his daughter Grace Georgina.<ref name="writings" />

Matilda Tone also returned to the United States, where in 1816 she married Thomas Wilson, a Scottish businessman and advocate who had taken care of Tone's financial affairs after the death of her husband. Her efforts, with Wilson, to return to Ireland were twice rebuffed by the British authorities. She died in 1849, and is buried in [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood Cemetery]] in [[Brooklyn]], New York.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brundage |first=David |date=2010 |title=Matilda Tone in America: Exile, Gender, and Memory in the Making of Irish Republican Nationalism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25660948 |journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=96–111 |issn=1092-3977}}</ref> 

==In popular culture==
Several [[Gaelic Athletic Association]] clubs in Ireland are named in honour of Wolfe Tone. These include, in [[Kildare GAA|Kildare]], [[Wolfe Tones GAA]]; in [[Armagh GAA|Armagh]], [[Wolfe Tone GAC, Derrymacash]]; in [[Derry GAA|Derry]], [[Bellaghy GAA|Bellaghy Wolfe Tones GAC]]; in [[Meath GAA|Meath]], [[Wolfe Tones GAA]], and in [[Tyrone GAA|Tyrone]], [[Drumquin Wolfe Tones GAC]] and [[Kildress Wolfe Tones GAC]]. In North America, there is the [[Chicago Wolfe Tones GFC]] in Illinois, and the Edmonton Wolfe Tones in Alberta, Canada. In [[Antrim GAA|Antrim]], the [[Greencastle Wolfe Tones GAC]] is based in the Greencastle district of [[Belfast|North Belfast]], bordering [[Cavehill]] where members of the United Irishmen took their oaths.

In 1963, [[Brian Warfield]], [[Noel Nagle]], Tommy Byrne, and [[Derek Warfield]] formed [[The Wolfe Tones]], an Irish republican band. They play [[Irish rebel music]] and have courted some controversy with songs celebrating the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army|Provisional IRA]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-08-17 |title=Wolfe Tones frontman responds to criticism over IRA chants at Feile gig: 'We're entitled to our culture' |language=en-GB |work=BelfastTelegraph.co.uk |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/wolfe-tones-frontman-responds-to-criticism-over-ira-chants-at-feile-gig-were-entitled-to-our-culture/41918274.html |access-date=2023-12-31 |issn=0307-1235}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-01-01 |title=Wolfe Tones singer says it's 'ridiculous' Leinster Rugby issued apology for playing 'up the RA' |url=https://www.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/wolfe-tones-singer-says-its-ridiculous-leinster-rugby-issued-apology-for-playing-up-the-ra/1082395811.html |access-date=2023-12-31 |website=SundayWorld.com |language=en}}</ref>

In 1998, Tone, played by the actor [[Adrian Dunbar]], was the protagonist in an [[RTÉ|RTE]] four-part television movie, ''The Officer From France.''<ref>{{Citation |last=Barry |first=Tony |title=The Officer from France |date=1998-11-19 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408050/ |type=Drama |access-date=2024-01-01 |others=Adrian Dunbar, Jennifer O'Dea, David Herlihy |publisher=Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)}}</ref>

The bicentennial year also saw publication of ''Belmont Castle: or, Suffering Sensibility'' "by Theobald Wolfe Tone & divers hands".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Tone |first1=Theobald Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=emdbAAAAMAAJ |title=Belmont Castle, Or, Suffering Sensibility |last2=Radcliff |first2=John |last3=Jebb |first3=Richard |date=1998 |publisher=Lilliput Press |isbn=978-1-901866-06-3 |language=en}}</ref> Edited by Marion Deane, it is an epistolary novel that Tone wrote with two friends, [[John Radcliff (Irish judge)|John Radcliff]] and [[Richard Jebb (barrister)|Richard Jebb]], in 1790, manuscripts of which were found in his possession when he was arrested in 1798. It is described as "an elaborate [[roman à clef]], satirizing the lives of several prominent figures of the Anglo-Irish establishment and redressing a painful love affair [with Lady [[Elizabeth Vesey]]] from Tone’s past".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Belmont Castle by Theobald Wolfe Tone |url=https://www.lilliputpress.ie/product/belmont-castle-or-suffering-sensibility |access-date=2024-01-01 |website=The Lilliput Press |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Works ==

* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=emdbAAAAMAAJ Belmont Castle: or, Suffering Sensibility],'' a novel with John Radcliff, Richard Jebb'','' 1790
* ''[https://cartlann.org/dicilimt/2021/07/THE-SPANISH-WAR-BY-WOLFE-TONE-1.pdf The Spanish War],'' 1790
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=7dY9AAAAcAAJ An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland]'', 1791
* ''[[wikisource:Declaration of the United Irishmen|Declaration of the United Irishmen]]'', 1791
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=grRpAAAAMAAJ The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone],'' 1798
* ''[[wikisource:The World's Famous Orations/Volume 6/On Being Found Guilty|On Being Found Guilty]]'', 1798
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=M2kNAAAAYAAJ The Life of Wolfe Tone, Written by himself, with his Political Writings and Fragments from his Diary]'', William T. W. Tone ed., 1826
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=IjQ9Plqyd8AC The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763–98]'', T. W. Moody, R.B. McDowell and C. J. Woods eds., 1998

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Tone, Theobald Wolfe|volume=27|pages=2–3|authorlink=Ronald McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun|first=Ronald John|last=McNeill}}
*Seán Ua Ceallaigh (ed.), ''Speeches from the Dock, or Protests of Irish Patriotism'' (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1953).
* Herr, Cheryl. ''For the Land They Loved: Irish Political Melodramas, 1890–1925''. Syracuse University Press, 1991

==External links==
{{Commons category|Wolfe Tone}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{OL author|277551A}}
* [http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/wolfe-tone-culture-suicide-eighteenth-century-ireland/ Laragy, Georgina. "Wolfe Tone and the culture of suicide in eighteenth-century Ireland", ''History Ireland'', Vol.21, Issue 6 (November/December 2013)]
* [http://theirelandinstitute.com/republic/02/pdf/bartlett002.pdf Bartlett, Thomas. "Theobald Wolfe Tone: An Eighteenth-Century Republican and Separatist"]

{{Irish Rebellion of 1798|state=expanded}}
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