Grattan, Henry (grăt`ən), 1746–1820, Irish statesman. A lawyer, he entered (1775) the Irish Parliament and soon became known as a brilliant orator. Aided by Britain's preoccupation with the American Revolution and its fear of the revolutionary potential of the Irish volunteer army (see Ireland Ireland, Irish Eire (âr`ə) [to it are related the poetic Erin and perhaps the Latin Hibernia
..... Click the link for more information. ), Grattan led the successful fight for abolition of the restrictions on Irish trade and the repeal of Poynings's Law (see under Poynings, Sir Edward Poyning's Law is the name given to the Drogheda statutes (1494) that provided that the English privy council must give previous assent to the summoning of an Irish Parliament and to the introduction of any specific legislation in the Irish Parliament, and that all laws passed in
..... Click the link for more information. ). Having thus gained nominal legislative independence for the Irish Parliament, he worked to eliminate the system by which English patrons continued to control it, advocating Catholic Emancipation Catholic Emancipation, term applied to the process by which Roman Catholics in the British Isles were relieved in the late 18th and early 19th cent. of civil disabilities.
..... Click the link for more information. as the only means for making the Irish Parliament truly representative. The Catholic Relief Act (1793) gave Catholics the right to vote in Ireland, but hopes raised in 1795 that Catholics would be allowed to sit in Parliament were soon dashed, and Grattan retired (1797) in indignation at the government's policy. In 1800, on the last day of the debate on the parliamentary union with England, Grattan appeared in the Irish Parliament and made the greatest speech of his career in opposition to the Act of Union. He sat in the British Parliament from 1805, taking little part except to support Catholic Emancipation.

Bibliography

See G. O'Brien, Anglo-Irish Politics in the Age of Grattan and Pitt (1986).

Grattan, Henry

(born July 3, 1746, Dublin, Ire.—died June 6, 1820, London, Eng.) Irish politician. He entered the Irish Parliament in 1775 and, as a brilliant orator, soon became the leading spokesperson of the Irish nationalist agitation. His movement gained momentum; he forced the British in 1779 to remove restraints on Irish trade and in 1782 to relinquish their right to legislate for Ireland. In 1800 he headed the unsuccessful opposition to the union of England and Ireland. In 1805 he was elected to the English House of Commons, where he fought for Catholic emancipation for his last 15 years.