(1763–98). Two goals of Irish patriots for centuries have been to unite the Roman Catholic and Protestant factions of the population and to overthrow English rule. Neither goal has been fully realized. In the 18th century the rebel-patriot Wolfe Tone sought to achieve an independent Ireland with the aid of expeditions from France.
Theobald Wolfe Tone was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 20, 1763. The son of a coach maker, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied law at the Middle Temple in London. He became a lawyer in Ireland in 1789 but soon gave up his legal practice to involve himself in political reform. In October 1791 he helped found the Society of United Irishmen, initially a predominantly Protestant organization that worked for parliamentary reforms such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation. In Dublin in 1792 Tone organized a Roman Catholic convention of elected delegates that forced the Irish Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act in 1793. This measure granted Catholics the vote, admission to the University of Dublin, and the chance to hold most civil offices. Tone himself, however, was anticlerical and hoped for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequel to the attainment of Irish political freedom.
By 1794 he and his United Irishmen friends began to seek armed aid from Revolutionary France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort failed, Tone went to the United States and obtained letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. In February 1796 Tone arrived in the French capital, presented his plan for a French invasion of Ireland, and was favorably received. He claimed that the Irish people would rise in rebellion if supported by France. One of the most brilliant young French generals, Lazare Hoche, was appointed to command the expedition. Tone was made an adjutant in the French army.
On December 16, 1796, Tone sailed from Brest, France, with 43 ships and some 15,000 men, but the ships were badly handled and were scattered by a storm. Though some ships reached Bantry Bay in southwestern County Cork, no troops were landed. A similar expedition from Holland was abandoned in September 1797. Tone again brought an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797, but the principal French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, took little interest. When the Irish Rebellion broke out in May 1798, Tone could obtain only enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast. In September he entered Lough Swilly, Donegal, with 3,000 men and was captured there.
At his trial in Dublin on November 10, Tone defiantly proclaimed his undying hostility to England and his desire “in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.” Early in the morning of November 12, 1798, the day he was to be hanged, he cut his throat with a penknife; he died seven days later.