The Wolfe Tones’ record-breaking crowd at this year’s Electric Picnic drew considerable media attention—a lot more than our more modestly attended History Ireland Hedge School (held at the same time) on the life and legacy of the man himself (https://historyireland.com/hedge-schools/). Yet in the longue durée of history the latter was far more significant, one of several events to mark the 225th anniversary of Tone’s death on 19 November 1798. (A series of ‘Wolfe Tone 225’ commemorative events will be held in Belfast and Dublin on 17–19 November 2023 and will be made available here [website?].)
One of the founders in 1791 of the Society of United Irishmen (he suggested the name), Tone was not only an eloquent pamphleteer and propagandist (notably An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland) but also an effective organiser. As secretary of the Catholic Committee, he was the driving force behind the Catholic Convention of December 1792, the most thoroughly democratic assembly in Ireland up to that point—and the most effective; the London government subsequently conceded most of its demands.
And when further constitutional progress was blocked by British repression, Tone did not shy away from the revolutionary implications. Within eighteen months of his departure into exile in April 1795 he had successfully negotiated a French invasion force, which, if it had landed in Bantry Bay in December 1796, would undoubtedly have liberated Ireland. But it was not to be. As Tone himself ruefully reflected, ‘In such enterprises, everything depends on success’.
Perhaps his greatest legacy is that his aspiration ‘to abolish the memory of all past dissentions; and to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter’ laid down the template for a modern definition of Irishness, a nationality based on rights and on citizenship, one still relevant in today’s diverse multi-ethnic society.
According to the nineteenth-century unionist historian W.E.H. Lecky, ‘[Tone] rises far above the dreary level of commonplace which Irish conspiracy in general presents … His judgement of men and things was keen, lucid and masculine, and he was alike prompt in decision and brave in action.’
As for the Wolfe Tones (plural), their ongoing popularity continues to confound. As Tone himself might have said—‘The Wolfe Tones again. Strum, strum and be hang’d.’
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editor@historyireland.com