Working as a student in London during the summer of 1964, a little bit of cultural tourism was in order.  After all, one could hardly return to Dublin and tell folks that sightseeing had been confined to Soho and its immediate environs.  Accordingly, I took myself along to Westminster Abbey where, in due course, I found myself in the section in which famous political figures are interred.  And there, among the likes of the William Pitts (father and son) and William Wilberforce (of abolitionist fame), was Henry Grattan.  That's right, Henry Grattan of Grattan's Parliament.  How he got there is an interesting story.

Henry Grattan was born in Dublin in 1746, into a Protestant family where the father was a prominent municipal official and later MP.  He entered Trinity College in 1763, subsequently going on to study law in London and joining the Irish Bar in 1772.  His father - with whom Grattan didn't get along - died in 1766, and his mother followed two years later.  As a consequence of her intestacy at the time of death, most of the inheritance he had anticipated went elsewhere.  So he was largely on his own financially.

Into Politics

On December 11, 1775, Grattan entered the Irish parliament for the borough of Charlemont.

Politically, he first made his mark as one of the prime movers in the quest for free trade, and an appropriate measure was passed in 1779.  But the battle that created Grattan's historical reputation was still to come.

At the time, the legislative independence of the Irish parliament was severely curtailed, courtesy of two major restrictions.  First, Poynings Law (1494) meant that all Irish legislation had to receive the approval of the Privy Council in London.  And second, the Declaratory Act (1720) gave the Westminster parliament the authority to make law for Ireland should it so choose.

Grattan was neither a republican nor a separatist.  But while he believed in a British connection and unity under a single crown, he also wanted full legislative independence.  In April 1780, his parliamentary resolution put it this way: "That his most excellent Majesty, by and with the consent of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to enact laws to bind Ireland."  It took just over two years to get it done.

During the process, Grattan and his allies benefited from the explicit support of the Volunteers, a part-time Protestant militia that had been established in 1778-79.  With the departure of regular troops to combat the colonists in America, there was a need for a force to preserve law and order and guard against a French invasion.  The Volunteers filled that bill.  But they also dabbled in politics.  They endorsed Grattan's campaign at their February 1782 Dungannon convention, and then made their presence felt on the streets when the parliament met in Dublin to address the issue two months later.

On April 16, 1782, the Irish House of Commons unanimously accepted Grattan's amendment.  And on May 27 the viceroy announced that Westminster would go along.  It was done.

Grattan's Parliament

The term Grattan's parliament is often used to describe the 18 years of legislative independence between 1782 and the Act of Union in 1800.  And bearing in mind the role Grattan played in winning it, it's not a particularly inapt description.

But interestingly, it was not a parliament that Grattan dominated.  In fact, he spent most of his time on the opposition benches.  Noting "his lack of real influence in the corridors of power after 1782," historian and Grattan biographer James Kelly attributes it to "his inability to master administrative detail" and "his unwillingness to accept the responsibilities of power." While often eloquent and inspiring, Grattan was, in Kelly's thumbnail summing-up, "a natural opposition politician."

There was also an unfortunate rupture with his ally Henry Flood, a Kilkenny MP and a key figure in the Volunteers.  In October 1783, the two men tangled in parliament with the verbal exchanges becoming so vituperative that a duel was quickly arranged.  But although the intended "hostile meeting" at Blackrock was aborted by the sheriff's intervention, their relationship never recovered.

Of course, the independent Irish parliament of 1782-1800 was not what we would expect today.  For one thing, it had the suffrage limitations common to all 18^th century parliaments.  In addition, there was the issue of religious exclusion.

As a consequence of the Penal Laws, Catholic participation in Irish public life was severely restricted from the 1690s through most of the 1700s.  However, the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778, 1782 and 1793 began the process of removing those impediments, with the latter act giving Catholics the right to vote and to hold most civil and military offices.  But they still couldn't sit in parliament.  Although he had been initially hesitant, Grattan came to the view that full Catholic Emancipation was appropriate.  It was to remain an unrequited cause for the rest of his life.

1798

Partly due to the influence of the French Revolution, Irish political life was radicalised in the 1790s.  As a consequence, Grattan found himself in a distinctly uncomfortable position.

On the one hand, there was the United Irishmen.  Founded as reformers in 1791, by the middle of the decade the group had become dedicated to republican revolution - to be facilitated with the assistance of a French army.  Grattan was unsympathetic to both the vision and the methods.  As biographer Kelly puts it, he "was temperamentally as well as politically disinclined to support revolutionary activity."

On the other hand, there was the government which reacted to the threat by suspending habeas corpus.  To Grattan, this was a gross overreaction and he expressed his despair this way: "I know not where you are leading me - from one strong Bill to another - until I see a gulf before me, at whose abyss I recoil."

Feeling politically squeezed by what he saw as two extremes, Grattan dropped out, declining to stand in the 1797 election.  Then, physically and emotionally drained, he spent the insurrection summer of 1798 in the south and west of England.

Years later, he explained his actions: "We could do no good - we could not join the disaffected party, and we could not support the Government."  And while acknowledging that "the rebel who rises against the Government should have suffered," he left no doubt as to which party he saw as the biggest sinner: "Many honourable gentlemen thought differently from me.  I respect their opinions, but I keep my own; and I think now, as I thought then, that the treason of the Minister against the liberties of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of the people against the Minister."