1763-1798 [commonly Wolfe Tone]; b. 20 June, 44 Stafford St. [now Wolfe Tone St.], Dublin, son of a coachmaker [Peter Tone], though related to the Woulfe family [see Kilwarden]; foundation scholar at TCD in 1784; studied law at King’s Inns; eloped with Mathilde [var. Matilda] Witherington, whose gaze he first met from her an upper window of her father’s draper-shop in Grafton St., 1785; Middle Temple, 1787; Bar, 1789; published a spoof sentimental novel, Belmont Castle, or Suffering Sensibility (1790), with Richard Jebb and John Radcliffe; a roman à clef satirising gothic fiction and contemporary Irish society; issued A Review of the Conduct of the Administration (1790); appt. secretary to Catholic Association, 1792, and organiser of Catholic Convention - called Back Lane Parliament, at the Tailor’s Hall in Francis St.; founded with others United Irishmen in weeks following his pamphlet An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland (1791); attacked Irish Constitution in pamphlet of 1792 signed ‘A Northern Whig’; paid secretary of Catholic Committee, July 1792; organised the Catholic Convention in the Tailors’ Hall, Dublin, Dec. 1792; reacted to Harpers’ Festival with often-cited diary-entry, ‘The harpers again. Strum. Strum and be hanged’ (Journal, 13 July 13, 1792); authored ‘Ierne United’ about the same time; disturbed by anti-Popery displayed by Protestant United Irishmen celebrating Bastille Day in Belfast; disappointed by the Catholic Relief Act, 1793; when William Jackson, a Republican clergyman, was arrested as a spy for the French in April 1795, Tone’s memorandum on Ireland in his possession led to his being investigated; permitted to depart for America as a condition of non-arrest [i.e., exile], having signed a confession of treason; attained agreement that he would not give evidence against Jackson; remained in Dublin until after Jackson’s trial; before departure, he met with other Ulster United Irishmen at Cave Hill, Belfast, and undertook to continue with plans for revolution, May 1795; arrived Paris via Philadelphia with letters of introduction to the French Committee of Public Safety, under nom de guerre, ‘Citizen Smith’; wrote ‘Memorandums, relative to my Life and Opinions’, in Paris, 7 & 8 Sept. 1796, later forming the basis for the Life ed. by widow and son; worked on ‘Invasion Manifesto’ (‘Adddress to the People of Ireland’, March-Sept. 1796; General Hoche appointed to Irish expedition with Tone as adjutant-general by Directorate; sailed 15 Dec. 1796 with 43 ships and 15,000 men; scattered by storms; rejoined Hoche in Holland; death of Hoche, Sept. 1797; following news of the 1798 Rebellion, Tone sailed with Gen. Hardy and 2,300 men aboard flagship of Commodore Jean-Baptiste Bompard’s fleet incorporating the man-of-war Hoche, sixteen frigates and a schooner, 12 Oct.; captured aboard Hoche in Lough Swilly during action against Rear Admiral John Borlase Warren involving 200 French casualties, having turned down the opportunity to escape aboard the fast-sailing Biche, 16 Oct. 1798; wrote in his diary, ‘A fig for disembowelling, if the hang me first’; tried and sentenced 10 Nov. 1798, under protest from General Hardy at his ignominious treatment as a criminal); answered the charges with a plea of guilty (‘I mean not to give this court any useless trouble and wish to spare them the idle task of examining witnesses. I admit all the facts alleged’); gave his pocket book to John Sweetman (now in the National Museum); embraced Senecan death by cutting his own throat with a penknife on the morning appointed for his execution, while Curran was preparing an irrefutable challenge to the use of martial law against him; d. 19 Nov. [Boylan; 18 Nov. FDA] 1798; bur. Bodenstown, Co. Kildare, designated by Patrick Pearse ‘the holiest spot in Ireland’, and the site of annual republican pilgrimage on second last Sunday in June (with sep. commemorations by Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin/IRA); regarded as founder of Irish Irish Republican tradition; his Journals recording ‘a faithful transcript of all that passes in my mind, of my hopes and fears, my doubts and expectations in this important business’ published as The Autobiography of Wolfe Tone by his son William Theobald Wolfe Tone, with assistance from his Matilda, Washington 1826; Maunsel edition of 1912; the originals are held in TCD; also a dg., Maria; numerous anonymous political pamphlets of which no scholarly edition; there is an oval portrait by an unknown hand in the NGI; a modern Wolfe Tone Society was founded by Dr Roy Johnston, 1963. CAB DNB PI JMC DIB DIW DIL RAF FDA OCIL
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Works
Fiction, Belmont Castle, or The Suffering Sensibility, Containing the
Genuine and Interesting Correspondence of Several Persons of Fashion
(Dublin: Patrick Byrne 1790); M. Treacy, ed., Belmont Castle, or Suffering
Sensibility (UCD 1986); also Marion Deane ed. [rep. of 1790 edn.]
(Dublin: Lilliput Press 1998), 128pp.
Political writings, A Review of the Conduct of the Administration during the Seventh Session of Parliament ... [by An ‘Independent Whig’] (Dublin: Patrick Byrne 1790); Spanish War! An Enquiry how far Ireland is Bound, Right to Embark in the Impending Contest on the side of Great Britain? (Dublin: Patrick Byrne 1790); An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland ... (Dublin: Patrick Byrne 1791); A Vindication of the Conduct and Principles of the Catholics of Ireland ... to which is added, a Correct Copy of the Petition Presented to his Majesty Jan. 2 1793, 2nd ed. (London 1793); An Address to the People of Ireland on the Present Important Crisis ([Brest., n.p.] 1796); The Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone: written by himself and continued by his son; with his Political Writing [...] Diary[...] Narrative of his Trial [...&c.], 2 vols. (Washington: Gales & Seaton 1826) [infra].
The Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone: written by himself and continued by his son; with his Political Writing, and [...] Diary, [...] Narrative of his Trial; Defence before the Court martial and Death, ed. by his son William Theobald Wolfe Tone, 2 vols. (Washington: Gales & Seaton 1826), I, vii+566pp.; II: 674pp. [wrote ‘Memorandums, relative to my Life and Opinions’, in Paris, 7 & 8 Sept. 1796, latter forming the basis for his life (ed. by widow and son), with 17 surviving notebooks of his daily journal as supportive appendix].
Do. (reprint editions): The Life and Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 3 vols. (Paris 1828; Dublin: James Duffy 1846); R[ichard] Barry O’Brien, ed. & intro., The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763-1798, 2 vols. (London: Fisher & Unwin 1893), and Do. [Irish language edn.] (1932); Bulmer Hobson, ed., The Letters of Wolfe Tone (Dublin 1921); Seán O’Faolain, ed., The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone (London: Thomas Nelson 1937) [abridged] (London: Nelson 1937), xxxi+307pp.; Thomas Bartlett, ed., Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone [1826; ] (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1998), 992[1002]pp. [first complete reissue]; T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell & C. J. Woods, eds., The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763-98 Vol. I: Tone’s Career in Ireland to June 1795 (Oxford: OUP [Clarendon Press] 1998), 540pp.; Vol. II: American, France and Bantry Bay: August 1795 to December 1796 (Oxford: OUP [Clarendon Press] 2001), 435pp.
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Criticism
Frank MacDermot, Theobald Wolfe Tone and His Times (London: Macmillan
1929; rev. edn. Tralee 1968).
Frank MacDermot, Life Story of Wolfe Tone (Dublin: Talbot 1935).
Denis Ireland, ed., Theobald Wolfe Tone, Patriot Adventurer, extracts from the memoirs and journals [&c.] (London: Rich & Cowan 1936), vii, 228pp.
Leo MacCabe, Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen: For or Against Christ, 1791-1798 (London 1937).
André Rivoallan, ‘Un Patriot[e] Irlandais, Theobald Wolfe Tone’, in Annales de Bretagne, LXXIV (1967), pp.279-97.
Joseph James St. Mark, ed., ‘Wolfe Tone Letter: 1795’, in Éire-Ireland, 6, 4 (Winter 1971), pp.15-16 [letter to Pierre Auguste Adet., French ambassador in Philadelphia].
Marianne Elliott, ‘The Origins and Transformation of Early Irish Republicanism’, in International Review of Social History, Vol. XXIII, No. 3 (1978), pp.405-28.
Henry Boylan, Theobald Wolfe Tone (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1981; facs. rep. 1997).
Marianne Elliott, Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France (London & New Haven: Yale UP 1982).
Tom Dunne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Colonial Outsider: An Analysis of His Political Philosophy (Cork: Tower Books 1982).
Hubert Butler, Wolfe Tone and the Common Name of Irishman (Lilliput 1985).
Marianne Elliott, Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence (London & New Haven: Yale UP 1989).
Thomas Bartlett, ‘The Burden of the Present: Theobald Wolfe Tone, Republican and Separatist’, in David Dickson, Daire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., The United Irishmen: Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1993), pp.1-15.
Thomas Bartlett, Theobald Wolfe Tone [Life and Times No. 11] (Hist. Assoc. of Ireland 1997), 97pp.
Sean McMahon, Wolfe Tone (Cork: Mercier Press 2001), 80pp.
Oliver MacDonagh, States of Mind: A Study of Anglo-Irish Conflict 1780-1980 (London: Allen & Unwin 1983); pp.73-75, et passim.
David Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland 1600-1800 (Dublin 1987).
C. Desmond Greaves, Theobald Wolfe Tone and the Irish Nation (Dublin: Fulcrum Press [1991]).
Sean Cronin, For Whom the Hangman’s Noose was Spun: Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen (Dublin [q. pub.] 1991) 119pp.
Oliver Knox, Rebels and Informers: Stirrings of Irish Independence (London: John Murray 1997).
Declan Kiberd , in Oonagh Walsh, Ireland Abroad: Politics and Professions in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2003) [on Tone’s Journal; q.pp.].
Thomas Davis, “Tone’s Grave”, in The ’98 Song Book, n.d., p.12; cited in Loreto Todd, The Language of Irish Literature, 1989.)
Patrick Pearse, The Separatist Idea, p.293.
Patrick Pearse described Bodenstown as ‘the holiest place in Ireland, in Marianne Elliott, Wolfe Tone, 1989, p.416; quoted in Paul Arthur, ‘“Reading Violence”: Ireland’, in David E. Apter, ed., The Legitimacy of Violence, Macmillan/UNRISD 1997, pp.234-91.
Patrick Pearse, cited in Peter Berresford Ellis, A History of the Irish Working Class, 1972, London: Pluto 1996 edn., p.224.
Rosamund Jacob, The Rise of the United Irishmen 1791-94 (George Harrap 1927).
Rosamund Jacob, The Rebel’s Wife (Kerryman 1957).
Marianne Elliott, review of T. W. Moody, et al., The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone [Vols. 1 & 2], in Times Literary Supplement (17 Jan. 2003).
Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody (1992), pp. 250, [570-71.
Mary Helen Thuente, The Literary Significance of the United Irishmen’, Michael Kenneally, ed., Irish Literature and Culture (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992), pp.35-62.
Rory Brennan, review of Belmont Castle, or Suffering Sensibility (rep. edn. 1998).
Ian McBride, review of The Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, in TLS, 23 Oct. 1998.
Frank O’Connor, Conversation with Denis Ireland; see From An Irish Shore, 1939, p.144.
Moira Tierney, writing on Matilda Tone, in The Irish Times (20 Dec. 1997).
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Notes
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washingtpon 1904),
gives extracts from Journal incl. ‘Interview with Napoleon’.
See also William Theobald, infra.
Frank O’Connor, ed., Book of Ireland (London: Collins 1979), gives extract from the Bantry Bay passages of Tone’s Journal, ‘... as to the embowelling, “je m’en fiche”, if ever they hang me, they are welcome to embowel me if they please. ... Nothing on earth could sustain me now but the consciousness that I am engaged in a just and right cause.’
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol 2 (1980), Bibl., cites modern edn. Autobiography abridged by Seán O’Faolain (London 1937); Frank MacDermot, Theobald Wolfe Tone and His Times (1939, rev. 1968); Anatole Rivoallan, Un Patriot irlandais [Annales de Bretagne, LXXIV] (1967).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 1 selects An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland [926-30]; See also Burke’s ‘Letter of Sir Hercules Langrishe’: I agree with you in your dislike of the discourses in Francis Street; but I like as little some of those in College Green ... better things might have been expected in the regular family mansion of public discretion, than in a new and hasty assembly of unexperienced men, congregated under circumstances of no small irritation [with ref. to the withdrawal of the liberal Viceroy Fitzwilliam’ [852n.]; the take-over of the committee by the United Irishmen, with Tone taking over from Richard Burke as agent [ibid, 853n.]; ‘democratic’ style [859]; through Tone, Northern dissent, French democracy, and Dublin middle-class lobbying come into combination [1076]; [further rems. at 1267]; BIOG & COMM [958-59]. SEE also FDA2, Tone in popular song [77]; instead of Grattan, the nationalist hero becomes Tone for the Fenians, in Martin’s The Irish Felon and Mitchel’s United Irishman [172]; Pearse derived legitimacy from Tone and 1798 [213]; Michael Davitt, ‘Tone’s sacrifice [et al.; 277]; counted by Pearse among the ‘evangels of later days’ [292]; opined that the Dublin mob would be worthless (F. H. O’Donnell) [339]; ‘sunny spirit of toleration which was the glory of Grattan’s parliament and of Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen’ (William O’Brien, 1918) [348]; ‘the first words of the United Irish charter, “this society is constituted for the purpose of forwarding the brotherhood of affection, a communion of right, and a union of power among Irishmen”; also adopted as first words of the United Irish League (William O’Brien, do.) [349]; [O’Casey’s Seamus, in The Shadow &c, ‘Many a true Irishman was a Protestant - Tone, Emmet an’ Parnell’ [ 694]; [cf. Peter, Act. II, Plough & Stars, 701; Yeats, ‘.. All that delirium of the brave?’; 799]; Yeats, “16 Dead Men”, ‘[...] For those new comrades have they found, / Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone, / Or meddle with our give and take / That converse bone to bone?’ [807]; [?another rem. 854]; Rolleston, for Protestants [973]; James Connolly attacked the facility with which pillars of the nationalist community could participate in the 1798 centenary, in a scathing editorial, ‘Wolfe Tone and his “Admirers”’, (The Workers’ Republic, 5 Aug. 1899), 988; [Luke Gibbon, ed., 999], [Aodh de Blacam, 1016]. ALSO, FDA3 REFS & REMS, 8, 38n, 382, 591, 549, 563, 570, 572, 476; [Francis Shaw, ‘The Canon of Irish History - A Challenge’, Studies, 1972, 591-95 passim]; Conor Cruise O’Brien, comments on physical force movement’s origin in his republican ideal [596-597]; idem, the IRA show from Tone that an Ireland politically connected with Britain is unfree [601]; Tone had come to despise everything which his own Episcopalian class stood for and regarded himself as an honorary Presbyterian in politics, if not in religion (Marianne Elliott, Watchmen in Zion, 1985) [607]; Joyce, ‘to deny the name of patriot to all those who are not of Irish stock would be to deny it almost all the heroes of the modern movement [e.g. Tone]’ (‘Ireland, Isle of Saints and Sages’, 1907) [667]; De Valera quotes Tone as expressing the republican ideal, and cites his words in the Sinn Féin constitution (Clare election speech, 1923 [744]; de Valera at Bodenstown, 21 June 1925 [746-47]; [also Yeats, 1323; Fiacc, 1331n].
Working Class Movement Library (Salford) holds inter alia early edns. of Tone’s Autobiography (1827 & 1828), another edn. by R. Barry O’Brien (1893), and one abridged by Sean O’Faolain (1937). Catalogue and webpage contains the note: ‘none of the editions so far published contains the full text of Tone’s journal, about one-tenth of the original having been excised for various reasons. The full manuscript is in Trinity College Library, Dublin. Oxford University Press is currently planning to publish it as part of a definitive edition of Wolfe Tone’s writings.’ [See online.]
Arthur Ponsonby, Scottish and Irish Diaries &c (1927), contains an extract from Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone (Washington 1826); another in Bernard Share, ed., Far Green Fields, 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992).
Hyland Catalogue (Oct. 1995) lists Leo McCabe [sic], Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen: For or Against Christ?, Vol. 1 (1937) [ex. SJ Milltown Library
United Irishmen’s Declaration: ‘First Resolved - “That
the weight of English influence on the Government of this country is so
great as to require a cordial union among all the people of Ireland, to
maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation of our liberties
and the extension of our commerce.” Second - “That the sole
constitutional mode by which this influence can be opposed is by a complete
and radical reform of the representation of the people in Parliament.”
Third - “That no reform is practicable, efficacious, or just, which
shall not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion. Satisfied, as
we are, that the intestine divisions among Irishmen have too often given
encouragement and impunity to profligate, audacious and corrupt administrations,
in measure which, but for these divisions, they durst not have attempted,
we submit our resolutions to the nation as the basis of our political
faith. We have gone to what we conceive to be the root of the evil. We
have stated what we conceive to be the remedy. With a Parliament thus
reformed, everything is easy; without it, nothing can be done. And we
do call on, and most earnestly exhort, our countrymen in general to follow
our example, and to form similar societies in every quarter of the kingdom
for the promotion of constitutional knowledge, the abolition of bigotry
in religion and politics, and the equal distribution of the rights of
men through all sects and denominations of Irishmen. The people, when
thus collected, will feel their own weight, and secure that power which
theory has already admitted to be their portion, and to which, if they
be not aroused by their present provocation to vindicate it, they deserve
to forfeit their pretensions for ever.” (See John Larkin, ed., The
Trial of William Drennan, 1991).
Aka: Tone used various pseudonyms in his correspondence, viz., “Jone”, “Smith” and “Brown”, in an effort to evade British spies. See Joseph James St. Mark, ed., ‘Wolfe Tone Letter: 1795’ [to Pierre Auguste Adet., French ambassador in Philadelphia], in Éire-Ireland, 6, 4, (Winter 1971), pp.15-16, p.15; also notes that many of Tone’s papers are lost for 1793-95 period.
Matilda Tone outlived two husbands and all her children; she was at first buried in Washington and moved to Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY, 1891; her headstone was restored by the New York Irish History Roundtable and unveiled by Mary Robinson, 8 Oct. 1996, Nancy Curtin speaking on the occasion; the inscription reads: ‘Matilda, widow by her second marriage of Thomas Wilson. Born June 1769. Died March 18th, 1849. Revered and loved as the heroic wife of Theobald Wolfe Tone.’ [Marion R. Casey, et al., Irish List, Virginia, May 1998.]
It has been hinted that Arthur Wolfe, Viscount Kilwarden was the illegitimate father of Wolfe Tone (See John O’Donovan, ‘The Irish Judiciary in the 18th and 19th Centuries’, in Éire-Ireland, 6, 4, Winter 1971, pp.17-22; p.21). Along with his nephew, Lord Kilwarden, usually styled ‘a humane judge’, was a victim of the Rebellion of 1803 led by Robert Emmet.
Sean O’Faolain speaks of Tone as ‘the beau-ideal of Irish rebels’ (The Irish, 1947, p.99; quoted in R. F. Foster, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it Up in Ireland, Penguin 2001, p.212.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)