From the Wolfe Tone Memorial mass demonstration at St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, 15 August 1898. Reported in the Dublin Daily Nation, August 16, 1898.
I am proud to be here to-day, and I am all the prouder because I know that I am here, because I was in the dock in Green street some 33 years ago, and in Pentonville, Portland, and elsewhere for some twenty years after. But the question is not where I am or where I was, but the far larger question as to what manner of man was he, to do honour to whose memory we are all assembled here to-day. Theobald Wolfe Tone was, first and before all things, the organiser of the last great struggle for Irish Independence. Great Irishmen have lived and died before and after Tone, but I think I may safely say that, since Owen Roe died at Clough-Oughter upon St. Leonard’s Day, no other Irishman has brought us within such measurable distance of the goal of all our wishes. If I were to stop here I should have said quite enough to justify all the honour that we or future generations of Irishmen can pay to the memory of Tone. But I cannot stop here. I must do what I can, within the reasonable limits of a speech, to point out in some little detail, what exactly Tone did. He first combined all classes and creeds of his countrymen in that body, so well known to all of us, under the honoured name of United Irishmen. How he did this time will not allow me to tell, but I should advise all of you to find out for yourselves in that charming book—Tone’s Life by his son, and in Madden’s Lives of the United Irishmen. Two things, however, in the life of Tone, I must for a moment dwell upon—the scene in Bantry Bay, and the last great scene of all. You all know, or at least you all ought to know, something about the greatest of the three expeditions that Tone succeeded in getting fitted out for the invasion of Ireland. They consisted, roughly speaking, of a fleet of 43 vessels, with troops to the number of over 13,000 on board, and an ample supply of arms for the use of the Irish. Hoche, if not the greatest, one of the two greatest generals then living, was in command of the troops. Humanly speaking, if that force in its entirety had reached Bantry Bay, there was an end of English rule in Ireland. But, alas! that was not to be. You all know what is proverbially said about certain people having a certain sort of luck. Some 6,000 men in all succeeded in reaching the Irish coast, but without their general-in-chief. Tone, even in the absence of Hoche, wished to land with such forces as they had, and at last brought the French commanders around to his opinion. But man proposes, and God disposes. On the night before the day they had agreed upon for the landing the ships were again scattered to the winds and forced to find their way back to France as best they could. But what must have been the feeling of Tone during all this trying time? I fancy his agony was greater than in the last great scene of all, though his hopes of eventual success must have still stood high. But let us hasten to that last scene. In the year ’97 a great Dutch expedition was ready to sail, but was shut up in the Texel by adverse winds, while an English fleet, growing stronger day by day, guarded the sea outside. Finally there was a battle, in which the Dutch were defeated, and so there was an end of that. Then came a wearying time for Tone, when Hoche was dead and Carnot removed from power, and everything depended upon Napoleon Bonaparte, who apparently never intended to aid Ireland. Then came on the fateful year ’98 itself, the arrest of the chief leaders, the outbreak of the insurrection, and its suppression, after the many gallant fights of which we all have heard. To know how Tone felt during that sad period, you must read his diary, and this you can now easily do in the little sixpenny book, by Miss Milligan, where the whole thing is very well epitomised. But at last Tone was to find his way back to Ireland—to a hopeless fight and certain death. A small French fleet, with Wolfe Tone on board, had barely reached Lough Swilly, when it found itself pursued by a much stronger English squadron. Some of the lighter French ships were able to effect their escape, and Tone was entreated by all to sail with them, seeing that, whatever might be the fate of the Frenchmen who remained, Tone’s fate was certain. But he simply answered:—‘Shall it be said that I fled whilst the French were fighting the battles of my country?’ Then came the surrender of the French ship, after a desperate defence—the recognition of Tone amongst the French prisoners of war—his despatch to Dublin in fetters—his trial by courtmartial—and his sentence to be hanged, his English enemy, with its wonted want of generosity, refusing his only request—that he should be granted the death of a soldier. But I cannot go on. The trial and the tragedy in prison are agonising reading, but you must find out all about them for yourselves, in the Life by the son, or at worst in Miss Milligan’s little book. One thing, however, I may give. ‘In a cause like this,’ says Tone, ‘success is everything. Success in the eyes of the vulgar fixes its merits. Washington succeeded and Kosciusko failed.’ But, thank God, we are no vulgars here to-day. To us Tone’s failure is grander than many a success: for he failed gloriously in a great attempt. I shall not keep you any longer; you have many other speakers, no doubt, better worth listening to, to hear. There are many lessons to be learned from this life of Tone, but, we do not mean to be controversial, or I hope, too lengthy here to-day. If we mean that Ireland should be free—and, I hope, we all mean that—we must become United Irishmen again, in a literal sense at least, and, personally, I could wish that we were all United Irishmen in the National sense, too.