Grattan, Henry

Politician, and the leading orator in the late-eighteenth-century Irish parliament, Henry Grattan (1746–1820) was brought into the House of Commons in 1775 by Lord Charlemont to reinforce the then somewhat depleted ranks of opposition MPs known as Patriots. Choosing at the outset to focus on financial issues, Grattan quickly demonstrated that he was possessed of exceptional oratorical skills. His penchant for "violent" language elicited disapproving comments from those who were the target of his criticism, but it earned him bouquets from his parliamentary colleagues and an increasingly politicized public. Grattan was a leading member of the Patriot interest that obliged the British government to remove long-standing mercantilist restrictions on Irish trade in the winter of 1779 to 1780. In April 1780, Grattan called on the Irish Commons to approve "a declaration of the rights of Ireland," but two years elapsed before he was able to gain approval for such a declaration by taking advantage of a change in government at Westminster and the strong support of the Volunteers, a paramilitary body of Protestant citizens formed to aid in the defence of the kingdom. It was the greatest moment in Grattan's career and ensured that the ensuing constitutional changes securing to the Irish legislature the right to make law for the kingdom of Ireland ("legislative independence") would long be identified with him ("Grattan's parliament").

Unfortunately from Grattan's perspective, a disagreement with Henry Flood as to whether the British parliament had renounced the right to make law for Ireland soured the public mood and generated a measure of bitterness between the two men that nearly culminated in a duel in 1783. Having lost the esteem of the public, Grattan sought to forge a working relationship with Dublin Castle, but he did not possess an eye for legal or administrative detail and soon gravitated toward opposition in the House of Commons. The Regency Crisis of 1788 through 1789, which provided the stimulus for the foundation of the Whig Club, more organized opposition, and the general invigoration of political discourse following the outbreak of revolution in France, created the environment in which Grattan could flourish once more. Now MP for Dublin city, his embrace of the cause of Catholic enfranchisement ensured him a leading place among the country's moderate reformers. His advocacy of Catholic emancipation at the time of Earl Fitzwilliam's controversial viceroyalty between 1794 and 1795 reinforced this image, but his inability to overcome the conservative vested interests, who were committed to upholding the values of "Protestant Ascendancy," caused him to withdraw from Parliament in 1797. Wrongly suspected of complicity with the United Irishmen in the late 1790s, he was persuaded to make a political comeback in 1800 only by the threat of an Anglo-Irish union. His fruitless opposition to the Act of Union helped greatly to reinforce his identification with legislative independence among later generations, though he served in the united Parliament from 1805 until his death in 1820. A sincere and influential presence in the Whig Party, he worked unsuccessfully to promote Catholic emancipation conditional on the Crown retaining the power to veto appointments to the Catholic hierarchy. The emergence of a demand for the repeal of the Act of Union following his death ensured that it was as the progenitor of "Grattan's parliament" that he achieved a measure of popular immortality.

Bibliography

Grattan, Henry, Jr. Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan. 5 vols. 1839–1846.

Kelly, James. Henry Grattan. 1993.

Kelly, James. Henry Flood: Patriots and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Ireland. 1998.

McDowell, Robert B. Henry Grattan. 2001.

James Kelly

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