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Wolfe Tone's Death

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  • 30-11-2013 5:52pm
    #1
    Ozymandiaz
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭


    Via the internet I recently came across an article by P. O'Donnell in the Irish Journal of Medical Science (1997 Jan-Mar;166(1):57-9) but have no access to it other than to the Abstract and the first two pages [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02939781#page-1 ].

    The article is entitled 'Wolfe Tone's Death: Suicide or Assassination?' In it the author, a retired Commandant in the army, argues that the circumstances of Tone's death may not have been as traditionally reported.

    Not being able to read the entire thing I am wondering if anyone can shed any further light on this article or on any revisionist history regarding Tone's death.


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    #2
    TwoGallants
    Registered Users Posts: 159 ✭✭TwoGallants


    I don't really have much to add to this, but I do remember a pub argument some time ago where an acquaintance of mine argued that Tone couldn't have killed himself, as no good catholic would do so. My response? Something along the lines of, 'eh?'

    I'm afraid this is a topic that does not provoke rational responses.


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    #3
    Ozymandiaz
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭Ozymandiaz


    TwoGallants wrote: »
    I don't really have much to add to this, but I do remember a pub argument some time ago where an acquaintance of mine argued that Tone couldn't have killed himself, as no good catholic would do so. My response? Something along the lines of, 'eh?'

    I'm afraid this is a topic that does not provoke rational responses.
    Wolfe Tone was a Protestant which, I think, was the point of your post.Thanks for the response and I would be inclined to agree that a pub is the last place in which to find a rational discussion on Wolfe Tone!


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    #4
    Tramps Like Us
    Registered Users Posts: 1,066 ✭✭✭Tramps Like Us


    I dont think there is much doubt that he killed himself. Why would he be assassinated when they were going to hang him like his brother and other rebels?

    I read this recently:
    Tone's attitude to suicide is worth examining, a well educated man he was familiar with ancient Roman statesmen and thinkers like Cato, who committed "honorable suicide" rather than face defeat. He also wrote that he regarded the suicide of Reverend William Jackson as "heroic". An Irish radical and a spy for France, Reverend Jackson came to Ireland in 1794 to assess the strength of the English garrison and to meet with Wolfe Tone and other United Irishmen. He was betrayed by a confidant, John Cockayne, an English spy, and arrested. His arrest and trial directly led to Wolfe Tone having to go to America as the authorities seized a seditious letter in which Tone declared that any invasion of Ireland by the French would be supported by the Irish. Jackson committed suicide by ingesting poison his wife smuggled to him while on his way to court to be sentenced. Tone also wrote that Jackson's "fortitude in a voluntary death must command the respect of the most virulent persecutor".

    Based on this and the reaction of the public, during a time where suicide was the ultimate taboo and those who died by their own hand were supposed to have their body mutilated and could not be buried in consecrated ground (Tone's body was unmolested and was buried in consecrated ground) we can conclude that Tone's suicide was intended by him to be a heroic death. Indeed the public, and subsequent generations, largely viewed it as such. A newspaper at the time, "The Morning Chronicle" surmised that Tone "thought it better to die the old Roman way". Despite the taboo surrounding suicide Tone became the foremost figure in the Irish republican pantheon.

    (for more on Tone's suicide and the attitude toward it see 'History Ireland', Volume 21 No. 6)
    http://theunitedirishman.blogspot.ie/2013/11/wolfe-tones-speech-from-dock.html

    Been meaning to pick up that edition of history Ireland


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    #5
    boomchicawawa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 249 ✭✭boomchicawawa


    I do admit that I relish a 'historic mystery' but the evidence of one here is minimal. The fact that the surgeon made an observation about a wounded man and didn't name him is tenuous at best. The surgeon was attached to the army and would no doubt have attended 100s if not 1000s of patients.

    Tone was to be hanged, no soldier wants to die this way.....History is littered with examples of many who escaped the hangman's noose by killing themselves first... If there was a motive by the British to have him silenced, they would not have allowed him to make his speech in court as shown by the last poster.

    The fact that he had spoken in admiration about others who took their own lives before execution is also very telling....I think this assertion can be filed in the 'shady fiction' drawer.....I appreciate the posting though as I haven't read up on Tone since school....which was alas many moons ago !!!:rolleyes:


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