The Irish Parliament in the Eighteenth Century
Thanks to the writings of Jonathan Swift and others in the early eighteenth century a new sense of patriotism and nationalism arose in Ireland. This began to express itself in the Parliaments of the 1750s, which won several battles against the English Parliament. However, by 1775, most of this patriotism had been expunged from the Irish Parliament by the English viceroys. Then, in 1776, the outbreak of the American Revolution caused a resurgence, led by a clever orator named Henry Grattan.
Henry Grattan (1746-1820)
Henry Grattan was the son of an Irish MP and took up a career in law. Although his oratory skill was tempered by his high-pitched voice and emphatic gestures, his earnest enthusiasm and gift for words made him a natural leader. When England stripped Ireland of all its soldiers and most of its money for the Revolution, Grattan helped pass legislation allowing for the creation of the Protestant Volunteer Militia.
Irish Volunteers
Within a year of their formation in 1778, over 40,000 men had joined the Irish Volunteers, and the organization quickly adopted a more political than military function. Among their number was Henry Grattan. In 1779, Grattan used the support of the Volunteers and the continued cause of the American War to push through legislation granting Ireland free trade and a repeal of all the unfair trade laws which England had saddled upon Ireland in the eighteenth century. It was a major victory, but just the opening round in Grattan’s charge.
The Dungannon Convention & Irish Legislative Independence
In 1882, Henry Grattan called for a meeting of the leaders of the Volunteers at the town of Dungannon. There, the 242 delegates drew up a Declaration of Irish Independence. However, unlike the recent American document, the Irish resolution did not call for the complete separation from Britain, but rather equal status and representation under the same monarch.
When the Irish Parliament met in 1882, Henry Grattan stood up and made a famous speech in which he addressed Ireland as a free nation and put forward a call for complete Irish legislative independence from the English Parliament.
Meanwhile, in England, a new administration had just come in after the resignation of the Tories following the British defeat in the American Revolution. Unwilling to risk another revolution, England granted Ireland its independence.
Grattan’s Parliament
So joyous were the people of Ireland that they granted £50,000 to Grattan so that he could become a full-time politician. For the next twenty years, Ireland entered a new era of peace, prosperity, and political freedom. The government of this time (1782-1800) is generally referred to as Grattan’s Parliament.
Grattan would later turn his attention to the plight of Catholics in Ireland and would eventually take this fight to Westminster after the Act of Union consolidated the Irish and British Parliaments.
Sources:
A History of Ireland by Peter and Fiona Somerset Fry, Barnes and Nobles Books, 1998
A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes by Jonathan Bardon, Gill & Macmillian Ltd, 2008
The Oxford Companion to Irish History, edited by S. J. Connolly, Oxford University Press, 1998
