To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country – these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissension, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter – these were my means.
— Theobald Wolfe Tone
Remembered as the “father of Irish republicanism,” Theobald Wolfe Tone was a central figure in the late 18th-century movement for Irish independence. Born into a Protestant family in Dublin, Tone studied at Trinity College Dublin and later at Middle Temple in London to become a barrister. However, disillusioned with Ireland’s political landscape, Tone instead became a revolutionary. In 1791, he co-founded the Society of United Irishmen to fight for Roman Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform; this political organization sought to unite lines of religion, class, and identity and create an independent Irish republic. Tone believed the British deliberately fostered Ireland’s division to retain control and that true freedom could only come from solidarity across religious and class lines.
In pursuit of this objective, Tone sought foreign military assistance. He traveled to France in 1796 to secure support for an Irish uprising, but a planned landing at Bantry Bay, Co. Cork was abandoned due to scattered efforts to land and stormy weather – no troops disembarked, and the fleet returned to France. In 1798, on his second attempt to land in Ireland with French troops, Tone was arrested by British forces and sentenced to be hanged. However, he died in prison under disputed circumstances later that year, aged thirty-five.
Though Kwaku Fortune’s The Black Wolfe Tone is the semi-autobiographical story of a different man in a different time, it is still reminiscent of this legacy, channeling Wolfe Tone’s revolutionary spirit over the backdrop of a modern Ireland, a legacy that strives for liberation for all.