”Wolfe Tone, Masculinity, Friendship, and Revolutionary Politics in 1790s Ireland”-by Moore Visiting Fellow Ultán Gillen

This paper examines the connections between the revolutionary politics of Theobald Wolfe Tone and his friendships, especially that with Thomas Russell, his best friend and closest political ally. It also discusses the centrality of ideas of masculinity to Tone’s politics. In doing so, it seeks to locate Tone and the United Irishmen not just within recent developments in Irish historiography, but also shifts in cultural and intellectual history in the Atlantic world in the age of revolutions. It argues that Tone’s commitment to his friends was central to the development of his politics before his exile from Ireland in 1795, but also in his years of exile before and during the 1798 rebellion, when fear for his friends help Tone radicalise to an extent that has not always been sufficiently appreciated.  Tone emerges from the discussion as politically more militant, but also more emblematic of the cultural revolutions of the age.