Theobald Wolfe Tone

Born: 1763
Died: 1798

     Theobald Wolfe Tone was a Protestant lawyer who ardently supported the cause of Irish independence. Tone had been heavily influenced by the French Revolution and felt he could repeat similar results in Ireland. In 1796, he persuaded the French to send 15,000 soldiers to aid his cause. The weather that day was bad and the battle simply could not take place. Tone organized his next attempt in 1798. France again sent soldiers, this time only 3,000, and Tone ordered an attack on a British naval fleet. The rebellion failed and Tone was captured. He was sentenced to death by the British and asked to be shot like any prisoner of war. The British wanted to hang him like a common criminal but Tone would not submit; he slit his own throat with a penknife in his holding cell and slowly bled to death in his defiance.

     For more information on Wolfe Tone, please see http://www.irishclans.com/articles/famirish/tonetw.html.