Henry Grattan

Irish politician and reformer

• Born: July 3, 1746
• Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
• Died: June 6, 1820
• Place of death: London, England

A key figure in Irish political life in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Grattan helped establish Irish legislative independence and championed free trade and civil rights for Roman Catholics. A voice of moderation among Irish nationalists, he was renowned for the elegance of his oratory.

Early Life

Henry Grattan was the only son of James Grattan, recorder of Dublin and member of Parliament for the city, and Mary Marley, daughter of the lord chief justice. The family was prosperous but lacked extensive landed property or influential connections. Grattan attended private day school in Dublin, showing early promise as a scholar, and entered Trinity College in 1763, intending, against the wishes of his father, to study classical literature. When his father died in 1766, he left most of his estate to his four daughters, and Henry, faced with the necessity of pursuing a profession, chose law. Upon graduation from Trinity College in 1767 he was admitted to read law at the Middle Temple in London.

Although he qualified for the Irish bar in 1772, he lacked success in the courtroom. Of more importance to his future career was the education he received by frequent attendance in the visitor’s gallery of the English House of Commons, where he witnessed debates on the worsening crisis in the American colonies, imbibing both the style and the sympathies of the pro-American Whig opposition party.

Returning to Dublin during recesses, he gravitated toward the nascent Irish opposition party, headed by George Lucas, Henry Flood, James Caulfield, and others, who were embroiled in a dispute with the viceroy, Lord Townsend. For half a century, Ireland had been controlled by the Undertaker System, in which a viceroy appointed by the British crown ruled through a small number of Anglo-Irish landowning families, who in turn controlled the Irish house of commons through patronage. Townsend’s determination to govern without intermediaries forced an uneasy alliance between aristocrats and radicals. Grattan joined the fray with his literary talents, but lacking wealth or crucial family connections, his entry into Parliament seemed problematical. His opportunity came when the man representing one of Caulfield’s boroughs died suddenly in 1775, and Grattan was invited to fill the vacancy. Thereafter he was an active member of the Irish parliament, first for Caulfield and later for Dublin. He so made his mark that the era of Irish legislative independence, 1782-1800, is often referred to as “Grattan’s parliament.”

Life’s Work

In 1775, the Irish parliament’s overriding aim was its own legislative independence, without which no progress toward social or economic reform was possible. A Tudor statute known as Poyning’s Law required all legislation initiated in Ireland to be approved in England, while the Irish parliament had no power to undo the dictates of the English parliament. Henry Grattan was foremost among the legislators advocating repeal of this law. He quickly distinguished himself by the elegance of his oratory, which owed much to his classical education. His lengthy speeches, written in advance, memorized, and delivered in theatrical style, were as much admired for their literary quality as for their arguments.

The outbreak of war in North America provided the Irish with leverage. England was forced to remove most of its troops from Ireland, leaving it vulnerable to domestic unrest and foreign invasion. To fill the vacuum, Irish Protestants formed the Volunteer Corps, an efficient paramilitary force, 100,000 strong at its height, with its own independent governing system. In 1782, advocates of legislative independence, led by Grattan, presented their demands for repeal of Poyning’s Law to the Dungannon Convention of Ulster Volunteers amid threats of a martial nature uncomfortably reminiscent of America a decade earlier. The newly constituted Whig government in London capitulated, and “Grattan’s parliament” was born.

Irish nationalists almost immediately split into two camps: those who felt that the revolution of 1782 went far enough and those who felt that the revolution should be followed by sweeping social and electoral reforms. Grattan’s position, which fell somewhere between these extremes, was further compromised by his acceptance of the œ50,000 voted him by the Irish parliament. This was a large sum of money, especially for someone so vocal in his opposition to pensions and sinecures.

From 1782 onward, Grattan’s main causes were free trade and Catholic emancipation. On the subject of parliamentary reform he followed the moderate line adopted by William Pitt the Younger, the English Tory prime minister. He decried a system in which only a third of the seats in the Irish lower house were elected, and the remainder were frequently bought and sold, but he was no friend of universal franchise.

Grattan’s parliament had a solid record as a reforming body. Beginning with revoking the remaining penal laws against Catholics, the Irish parliament went on to grant them the franchise and entry into professions in 1793. Revisions in the poor laws, criminal law, laws governing debtors, and the founding of a Catholic seminary at Maynooth made Ireland, on paper at least, more socially advanced than the parent country in the late 1790’s.

Unfortunately, radical extremism and the resultant reaction swamped the voices of moderation. In 1795, the Whig opposition, now coalesced into a genuine political party under the leadership of Grattan, saw its opportunity in the appointment of a radical Whig as viceroy. Earl Fitzwilliam dismissed his predecessor’s advisers, ensuring the enmity of key powerful families, and embarked on a sweeping program of complete Catholic emancipation. Pitt recalled him abruptly, unleashing a storm of recrimination and returning the conservatives to power. Finding themselves in a dwindling minority, their calls for reform eclipsed by an attempted French invasion in December of 1796 and the increasing militancy of Irish separatists, Grattan and his fellow Whig nationalists withdrew from the Irish parliament on May 1, 1797.

Grattan took no part on either side in the 1798 rebellion. He thus escaped the stigma attached to quelling the uprising, but he also removed himself from the stage at a critical juncture. By the time he returned to Ireland in 1799, the process of abolishing the Irish parliament was well under way. Purchasing himself a seat, Grattan made a dramatic entry into Parliament on May 26, 1800, delivering his impassioned speech against the proposed Act of Union from a sitting position because of poor health. It was a futile gesture. Possibly a majority of the respectable electorate of Ireland, still reeling from the horrors of the 1798 rebellion and fearing a French invasion, really supported union; in any case, corruption proved its own undoing when venial members were bought out.

Nationalist biographies of Grattan end here, with the lone Irish patriot on the bridge of the sinking ship. Grattan’s subsequent political career was hardly a postscript. In retirement for five years, he entered United Parliament in 1805. Joining the opposition, he dedicated himself single-mindedly to the cause of Catholic emancipation, already partially in effect in Ireland but stalled in Britain as a whole because of opposition by British king George III. In 1813, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, an unlikely alliance between Grattan, his nemesis Lord Castlereagh, author of the Act of Union, and George Canning, of Parliament for Liverpool, nearly succeeded in getting Catholic emancipation passed by the House of Commons, and did succeed in passing a key free trade measure breaking the monopoly of the British East India Company. No subsequent attempt at Catholic relief fared as well during Grattan’s lifetime, partly because more and more Catholics turned to the banner of the extremist Daniel O’Connell, and many questioned whether Grattan’s cautious program still had support.

Subsequently, declining health forced curtailment of political life. Dublin voters reelected Grattan in 1818. In 1820, the prospect of a revival of the Catholic question induced him to travel to London, against the advice of his physicians. His health deteriorated on the journey, and he died in London on June 6, 1820. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1782 he had married Henrietta Fitzgerald, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.

Significance

Henry Grattan’s influence is measured more by the impact of his reputation than by his actual achievements. His son published a carefully edited version of his speeches as well as a five-volume laudatory biography. The image of the electrifying orator, the courageous advocate for Catholic rights, and the determined if ineffective opponent of the Act of Union struck a respondent chord among nineteenth century Irish nationalists. Consequently, Grattan became something of a cultural icon.

In retrospect, his actual accomplishments are limited to the 1782 repeal of Poyning’s Law and his support of social legislation. It is tempting to base the reputation of an opposition political figure upon the unsuccessful causes for which he advocated, but this practice pertains more to the way in which history is constructed for purposes of persuasion, than it pertains to history itself.

Bibliography

Herman, Neil. “Henry Grattan, the Regency Crisis, and the Emergence of a Whig Party in Ireland, 1788-89.” Irish Historical Studies 32, no. 128 (1999): 478-497. Focuses on a brief but crucial episode in Grattan’s career, and explores the complex relationship between Irish and English governments in the late eighteenth century.

McDowell, R. B. Grattan: A Life. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2001. A thorough and very readable biography, good for Grattan’s antecedents and early life. Corrects the nationalist and mythologizing trend of standard early biographies.

Madden, Daniel Owen. The Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan, to Which Is Added His Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on His Career and Character. Dublin: J. Duffy, 1874. The introduction to this work exemplifies the mythologizing of a historical figure.

Powell, John Stocks. “Henry Grattan: Enlightenment in Ireland.” History Today 27, no. 3 (1977): 159-166. An overview of Grattan’s career, aimed at a general audience. Examines the “Grattan mystique.”