Wolfe Tone

‘A fascinating, tightly-written slice of history’ Eamonn McCann, activist and journalist

‘Excellent ... provides a timely and hugely informative look at the forces and ideas that produced one of Ireland’s greatest revolutionaries’ Richard Boyd Barrett TD

‘Sober, nuanced, sympathetic – moves beyond the pitfalls of nationalist idolatry and revisionist condescension. Essential reading’ Brian Kelly, Reader in History, Queen’s University Belfast

Wolfe Tone was the founder of Irish republicanism. A unique figure within Irish nationalism, as an English-speaking Protestant of settler colonial origin, Tone underwent a dramatic political transformation in his relatively short life: from an elite playboy with colonial fantasies, into a radical Jacobin who advocated the unity of Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters.

Inspired by the French Revolution, he helped to build the United Irishmen into one of the largest revolutionary movements in Europe. Their rebellion of 1798 was crushed only through systematic terror, with more people murdered in Ireland than all of France during the ‘Reign of Terror’.

This political biography dispels the myths surrounding Tone’s life and politics, charting his political development as a revolutionary who, despite religious differences, placed trust in the ‘men of no property’ to break connections with England. His pioneering anti-sectarian vision remains as relevant as ever today.

Kieran Allen is an Emeritus Associate Professor of Sociology at University College Dublin. He is the author of numerous books, including 1916: Ireland’s Revolutionary Tradition and 32 Counties: The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland.