Henry Grattan

Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 1801 and a Member of Parliament (MP) in Westminster from 1805 to 1820. He has been described as a superb orator and a romantic. With generous enthusiasm he demanded that Ireland should be granted its rightful status, that of an independent nation, though he always insisted that Ireland would remain linked to Great Britain by a common crown and by sharing a common political tradition.

Grattan opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain, but later sat as a member of the united Parliament in London.

Henry Grattan was born in Fishamble Street, Dublin, and baptised in the nearby church of St. John the Evangelist in 1746. A member of the Anglo-Irish elite of Protestant background, Grattan was the son of James Grattan MP, of Belcamp Park, County Dublin and Mary, youngest daughter of Thomas Marlay, Attorney-General of Ireland, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer and finally Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench and his wife Anne de Laune. Grattan attended Drogheda Grammar School and then went on to become a distinguished student at Trinity College Dublin, where he began a lifelong study of classical literature, and was especially interested in the great orators of antiquity. Like his friend Henry Flood, Grattan worked on his natural eloquence and oratory skills by studying models such as Bolingbroke and Junius. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, he spent some years in London, and he visited France in 1771. He attended debates in the British House of Commons regularly, and also enjoyed visiting the celebrated Grecian Coffee House in Devereux Court, where he met Oliver Goldsmith. It was in London where he formed his lifelong friendship with Robert Day, later a judge of the Court of King's Bench.

After studying at the Middle Temple, London and then King's Inns, Dublin, he was called to the Irish Bar in 1772. He never seriously practised law but was drawn to politics, influenced by Flood. He entered the Irish Parliament for Charlemont in 1775, sponsored by Lord Charlemont, just as Flood had damaged his credibility by accepting office. Grattan quickly superseded Flood in the leadership of the national party, not least because his oratorical powers were unsurpassed among his contemporaries.

Catholics, who made up the majority of the Irish population, were completely excluded from public life at this time under the Penal Laws, in force in Ireland from 1691 until the early 1780s. The Presbyterians of Ulster had a lot more power as they were primarily of British ancestry, although most of the penal laws also affected them. Power was held by the King's Viceroy and by a small element, the Anglo-Irish families loyal to the Anglican Church of Ireland who owned most of the land.

The politicians of the national party now fought for the Irish Parliament, not with the intention of liberating the Catholic majority, but to set the Irish parliament free from constitutional bondage to the British Privy Council. By virtue of Poynings' Law, a statute of King Henry VII of England, all proposed Irish legislation had to be submitted to the Privy Council for its approval under the Great Seal of England before being passed by the Irish Parliament. A bill so approved might be accepted or rejected, but not amended. More recent British Acts had further emphasised the complete dependence of the Irish parliament, and the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords had also been annulled. Moreover, the British Houses claimed and exercised the power to legislate directly for Ireland without even the nominal concurrence of the parliament in Dublin. This was the constitution which William Molyneux and Swift had denounced, which Flood had attacked, and which Grattan was to destroy, becoming leaders of the Patriot movement.

Calls for the legislative independence of Ireland at the Irish Volunteer Convention at Dungannon, County Tyrone, greatly influenced the decision of the government in 1782 to make concessions. It was through ranks of Volunteers drawn up outside the Irish Parliament in Dublin that Grattan passed on 16 April 1782, amidst unparalleled popular enthusiasm, to move a declaration of the independence of the Irish parliament. A posthumous publication of Grattan's speeches which were revised by Grattan himself contains his speech from this day which became famous in Irish political history: "I found Ireland on her knees," Grattan exclaimed, "I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation!" However, the parliamentary register for that sitting contains no record of these lines meaning Grattan most likely altered the speech in later years. After a month of negotiation, the claims of Ireland were conceded. The gratitude of his countrymen to Grattan was shown by a parliamentary grant of £100,000, which had to be reduced by half before he would accept it.

Grattan then asked for the British House of Commons to reconfirm the British Government's decision, and on 22 January 1783, the final Act was passed by parliament in London, including the text: