How Revolutionary Was Wolfe Tone

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Tone's Argument on Behalf of Irish Catholics (1791), suggested a fundamental alteration in one aspect of power at the time, that is, its religious basis, its exclusion of Catholics from conventional politics. Here is a longer extract from the same pamphlet, in which Tone outlines further his ideas about how the regime should be changed. On the evidence of this text, how revolutionary was Tone at this stage of his career? In 1789 the French Revolution, fought under the slogan “Liberty, equality, fraternity,”. Political agitation was fast gaining momentum. Parliaments and courts were replaced by revolutionary tribunals. Thomas Paine’s famous Rights of Man was reissued in Dublin in 1791. Paine passionately denounced aristocracy and religious discrimination while praising the French Revolution. Tone had already come to realise that the demand for parliamentary reform without the granting of civil liberties to Catholics was meaningless, and he was disgusted by the failure of the Volunteers to take up the cause of Catholic emancipation. Wolfe Tone wanted the people of Ireland to show a united front. He wanted to put an end to the tyranny which was the ruling of England. Resolutions were put forward at the Belfast Volunteer Bastille celebrations on the 14th July by Tone. There were 3 resolutions put forward and the third one which was in relation to including Catholics in reform that was achieved was defeated. It was in response to the attitudes by the Dissenters that An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland was written and published in 1791. This pamphlet which was one of the most revolutionary of his time had brought Wolfe Tone 'into immediate relations' with the principal Catholic leaders in Dublin. The document was aimed at the Ulster Dissenters. Tone wanted to convince the dissenters that they along with the Catholics had but one common
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