Theobald Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone was a son of Peter Tone, a coachmaker, and Margaret Lamport Tone; he was born on St. Bride's Street, just behind Dublin Castle. His grandfather was a small farmer in county Kildare, and his mother was the daughter of a captain in the merchant service. Following a duel in which a man was killed, Wolfe Tone served as a tutor to Anthony and Robert Martin, younger brothers of Colonel Richard Martin of Dangan, County Galway, for some years in the early 1780s. During Martin's frequent absences, Tone had an affair with his wife. Though entered as a student at Trinity College, Dublin, Tone gave little attention to study, his inclination being for a military career; but after eloping with Matilda (or Mathilda) Witherington, a girl of sixteen, he took his degree in 1786, and read law in London at the Middle Temple and afterwards in Dublin, being called to the Irish bar in 1789.

He helped to create the organization known as the United Irishmen while he put aside the matter of religion entirely and fought for a free Ireland where members of all classes and religions could live together in harmony. A revolutionary to the end, Theobald remained true to this dream even after he was captured, as he took his own life to avoid giving the British the satisfaction of executing him.

More Events from January 20

• January 20, 1621
  Patents are granted for plantations in parts of Leitrim, King's County, Queen's County and Westmeath
• January 20, 1841
  James Armour, Presbyterian minister and political activist is born in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim
• January 20, 1902
  Kevin Barry, medical student and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Dublin
• January 20, 1902
  In the House of Commons, John Redmond criticizes the use of concentration camps by the British in South Africa
• January 20, 1916
  Secret negotiations result in alliance of the Irish Citizen Army with the Irish Republican Brotherhood
• January 20, 1964
  Alfred Chester Beatty, Irish library and art patron, died