Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone, usually just called Wolfe Tone ( born June 20, 1763 in Dublin, † November 19, 1798 ibid ), a lawyer and a radical leader of the Irish independence movement and their rebellion was from 1798 1791 he founded the Society of United Irishmen. .

Theobald was the eldest son of Peter Tone, a horse carriage manufacturer, and worked as a private tutor. He had an affair with the wife of his employer. 1786, he kidnapped the 16 -year-old Matilda Witherington, who became his wife. Because he then had no chance to become an officer, he studied law and was from 1789 lawyer in Dublin.

Politician

Since his proposal to establish a military colony in the South Seas (Hawaii) to establish, was not taken up by William Pitt the Younger, he went into politics. Soon the Whigs became aware of him and his writing " A Northern Wig" to have had a circulation of over 10,000. In this document, he pointed out the contradictions between representatives of parliamentary reform and the recognition of Catholics like Henry Flood and Henry Grattan and the fighters for an independent Ireland.

Society of United Irishmen

In October 1791 Tone founded with Thomas Russell ( 1767-1803 ), James Napper Tandy, Archibald Hamilton Rowan and others, the Society of United Irishmen ( Society of the United Irishmen ). He strove, who was himself a Protestant, to an association of Irish Catholics and Protestants in a common struggle.

He turned against Charlemont and Grattan, who was guided by Edmund Burke, stood for the ideals of the French Revolution and was based on Georges Danton and Thomas Paine.

Gradually, were radicals like John Keogh of Dublin influential in the Society of the United Irishmen. In the spring of 1792 Wolfe Tone was a further sign of its interdenominational Protestant orientation as a full-time secretary of the Catholic Committee. He supported the influence of the French Jacobins to the newly established seminary St. Patrick 's College, Maynooth, and fueled the hopes of a French invasion. As secret documents were discovered by the government, fled some leaders of the United Irishmen ( Reynolds and Hamilton Rowan ) and the union broke for some time together. Due to good contacts with the ruling party Wolfe Tone was able to emigrate to the United States in 1795. After a stay in Philadelphia, he wrote to Thomas Russell, that he did not like the American people, because it is not democratic enough and a " high-flying aristocrat " as George Washington guess. In general, he refused the money aristocracy even more than from the hereditary nobility.

Despite its agreements with the British government, which had demanded of him for permission to emigrate political abstinence, he went with Reynolds, Rowan and Napper Tandy to Paris to persuade the French government to an invasion of Ireland. He spoke there in 1796 with De La Croix and Carnot, who were impressed by his energy. He suggested an attack on Bristol and wrote several memoranda. He explained it quite a bit about the Irish situation and promised a general Irish uprising, when a French army of invasion incident. The Board had information of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor, who confirmed Tones estimates, and prepared an expeditionary force under Louis Lazare Hoche. On December 15, 1796 43 vessels stood at around 14,000 men in Brest in the lake. But the company failed as well as a French- Dutch. It could not even get the landing in Ireland. Napoleon Bonaparte supported the Irish rebellion of 1798 does not, but broke to Egypt. But Wolfe Tone was able to achieve that a small force, the Board sent under General Humbert that landed in Killala Bay and some success in Connacht scored before she was beaten by Charles Cornwallis. Wolfe Tones brother Matthew was captured and hanged. A second company of Napper Tandy failed on the coast of Donegal, and in a third company of Admiral Bompard with 3,000 men under General Hardy was Wolfe Tone, because he did not accept an offer to run away, caught in 1798 taken. He told the court martial in Dublin, he was French officer and should therefore not be hanged. Since he was still doomed he committed suicide with a penknife. Theobald Wolfe Tone lies in the cemetery at the bottom Town in County Kildare buried.

Among the Irish revolutionaries he stands out with realistic judgment, rapid decision-making ability and great courage. His diaries provide an interesting picture of Paris in the time of the Board. They were published by his son, William Theobald Wolfe Tone (1791-1828), who had emigrated to the U.S. after a period of service in Napoleon's army to Waterloo, where he died in New York on October 10, 1828.

Afterlife

The republican movement, such as organizations such as Sinn Féin and the IRA, Wolfe Tone revered as one of its founders, he still provides for the Irish republicanism is an important, the unity of people of different faiths in the struggle for the independence and unity of Ireland embodying symbol dar. Every year on the last Sunday of June in the ground floor Town Town commemoration held a series of ( separate ) rallies and commemorative events left and Republican organizations in which some thousands of people participate. For many of the participating groups, the Commemoration in this case represents the opportunity to announce programmatic statements or the political agenda for the coming year.

Named after Wolfe Tone include the folk band The Wolfe Tones and the Wolfe Tone Society, a major in the 1960s, Marxist intellectuals circle within the Republican movement, and the main bridge over the Corrib in Galway.