Grattan, Henry

Grattan, Henry (1746–1820), the most noted of the 18th‐century patriots. The son of a Dublin lawyer and MP, he was called to the Irish bar in 1772 and entered parliament in 1775, sitting first for Lord Charlemont's borough of the same name and later, from 1790, for Dublin city. In 1778–9, already a leading patriot spokesman, he responded eagerly to the opportunities provided by the Volunteer movement and the free trade agitation. The concession of ‘legislative independence’ in 1782 was a personal triumph, marked by a Commons resolution to vote him £50,000 for the purchase of a landed estate. However, the renunciation controversy almost immediately afterwards permitted Henry Flood to undermine Grattan's popularity. Having tried to support government as an independent member, Grattan returned to opposition over the Commercial Propositions in 1785. The regency crisis completed his re‐emergence as a patriot leader, now active in the new Irish Whig Party. Though alarmed by the French Revolution, and hostile to the United Irishmen, he was increasingly critical of what he saw as government's blindly reactionary response to popular disaffection, particularly after the recall of Fitzwilliam. He withdrew from parliament in 1797, returning in 1799 to oppose the Act of Union.

Although he had earlier spoken against permitting Catholics to purchase land, Grattan added to the resolutions prepared for the Convention of Dungannon a call for the relaxation of the penal laws. In 1793, after some hesitation, he advocated full Catholic emancipation. In 1804 he commenced a second parliamentary career, entering the Westminster parliament to support the renewed Catholic agitation. He remained until his death a leading parliamentary advocate of emancipation, as well as a prominent Whig spokesman on other issues. However, his support for the veto as a means of reassuring Protestant opinion put him increasingly at odds with O'Connell and other Catholic leaders.

Nineteenth‐century constitutional nationalists looked back to the Irish parliament of 1782–1800 (despite Grattan's own almost permanent position on its opposition benches) as ‘Grattan's parliament’. The government of independent Ireland, less sympathetic to this particular brand of Irishness, refused in 1943 to preserve his house intact. Modern assessments see Grattan as representative of the Protestant patriotism undermined by the religious and political polarization of the 1790s. They also note the lack of administrative ability that made him a natural opposition politician, the extent to which some of his famous speeches were rewritten for posterity, and the opportunism occasionally evident in his advocacy of popular causes.

Bibliography

Kelly, James , Henry Grattan (1993)