Henry Grattan Biography

Dromo's Den

GRATTAN, Henry (1746–1820). An Irish statesman and orator. He was baptized at Dublin, July 3, 1746. His father was recorder of Dublin and member of Parliament for that city until his death, in 1776. In 1763 Grattan entered Trinity College, Dublin, and four years later took his bachelor's degree, became a student at the Middle Temple in London, and in 1772 was admitted to the Irish bar. Politics, however, rather than the law, attracted Grattan, and in 1775 he was returned to the Irish Parliament as member for the borough of Charlemont. He became the leader of the popular cause, demanding free trade for Ireland; and when this had been obtained temporarily, he demanded that the laws made by the Irish Parliament should no longer be subject to the revision of the English Parliament. On April 19, 1780, he made his famous speech in favor of this measure, and two years later it was granted. He lost his popularity, however, when he opposed Flood's demand that a final renunciation of the principle of Irish dependence should be demanded, and only regained popular favor after he opposed Pitt's commercial measures. He spent thereafter many years urging the removal of all disabilities as regards Catholics, but was unsuccessful. When in 1797 Ulster was put under martial law, and Grattan's protests were unavailing, he withdrew from Parliament. He returned to Parliament in 1800 with the express purpose of opposing the proposed union between Great Britain and Ireland. His speeches were most eloquent, but they availed nothing. In 1805 he was persuaded to accept a seat in the Parliament in London, and labored there also for Catholic emancipation until his death, which occurred in London on June 6, 1820. Grattan's public and private character was unimpeachable, and as an orator he stands in the first rank, his style being rapid, and rich in antithesis and poetic suggestiveness.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. X (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 268.