At the beginning of 1789, 70 young Irishmen were enrolled in school on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève at the “Irish College,” then located on the rue du Cheval-Vert. Opened in 1775, it educated the sons of good families hoping to become priests, physicians, educators or military officers. The institution was not very revolutionary: as fervent Catholics, most of the students returned to Ireland after 1789. However, in 1792, when the monarchy fell, half of the 23 remaining students overthrew their superiors: the school became one of the sites of the rebellion that Irish republicans were then plotting against the British Crown.
Theobald Wolfe Tone, an Irish Revolutionary in Paris
Catherine Anne Wolfe Tone (in the style of), Portrait of Theobald Wolfe Tone
Theobald Wolfe Tone was 26 years old when the Revolution broke out in France. Influenced by the American Revolution, this lawyer from Dublin dreamed of transforming Ireland, a British colony, into a free republic. In 1791, he participated in the creation of the United Irish Society in Dublin, a political club whose goal was political independence for the island. After a trip to the United States, Wolfe Tone went to Paris in 1796 and obtained the military support of the French Republic. He even enlisted in the French army himself. However, launched in December, the attempt to land the French army in Ireland turned into a fiasco. Wolfe Tone eventually committed suicide in 1798 after the failure of the Republican uprising in Ireland against the British Crown.
