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Tag Archives: Parliament of Ireland


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Birth of Irish Politician Henry Grattan

henry-grattan

Henry Grattan, Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons, who campaigns for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century, is born at Fishamble Street in Dublin on July 3, 1746.

Grattan is baptised at the church of St. John the Evangelist in Dublin. He attends Drogheda Grammar School and then goes on to become a distinguished student at Trinity College, Dublin, where he begins a lifelong study of classical literature, and is especially interested in the great orators of antiquity.

After studying at the King’s Inns, Dublin, and being called to the Irish bar in 1772, he never seriously practises law but is drawn to politics, influenced by his friend Henry Flood. He enters the Irish Parliament for Charlemont in 1775, sponsored by Lord Charlemont, just as Flood has damaged his credibility by accepting office. Grattan quickly supersedes Flood in the leadership of the national party, not least because his oratorical powers are unsurpassed among his contemporaries.

Grattan’s movement gains momentum as more and more Irish people come to sympathize with the North American colonists in their war for independence from Great Britain. By 1779, he is powerful enough to persuade the British government to remove most of its restraints on Irish trade, and in April 1780 he formally demands the repeal of Poynings’ Law, which has made all legislation passed by the Irish Parliament subject to approval by the British Parliament. Two years later the British relinquish their right to legislate for Ireland and frees the Irish Parliament from subservience to the English Privy Council. Despite these successes, Grattan soon faces rivalry from Flood, who bitterly criticizes Grattan for failing to demand that the British Parliament completely renounce all claims to control of Irish legislation. Flood succeeds in undermining Grattan’s popularity, but by 1784 Flood himself has lost much of his following.

From 1782 to 1797 Grattan makes limited progress in his struggle to reform the composition of the Irish Parliament and to win voting rights for Ireland’s Roman Catholics. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 bolsters his cause by infusing democratic ideas into Ireland, but the subsequent growth of a radical Irish movement for Catholic emancipation provokes repressive measures by the British. Grattan is caught between the two sides. Ill and discouraged, he retires from Parliament in May 1797 and is in England when the Irish radicals stage an unsuccessful rebellion in 1798.

Grattan returns to Parliament for five months in 1800 and wages a vigorous but fruitless campaign against Prime Minister William Pitt’s plans for the legislative union of the Irish and British parliaments. In 1805, Grattan is elected to the British House of Commons, where for the last 15 years of his life he fights for Catholic emancipation.

In 1920, after crossing from Ireland to London while in poor health to bring forward the Irish question once more, he becomes seriously ill. On his deathbed he speaks generously of Castlereagh, and with warm eulogy of his former rival, Flood. Henry Grattan dies on June 4, 1820, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His statue is in the Outer Lobby of the Palace of Westminster.

The building housing the faculty of Law and Government at Dublin City University has been named in his honour. Grattan Bridge crossing the River Liffey between Parliament Street on the south side of Dublin and Capel Street on the north side is also named in his honour.


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Birth of Theobald Wolfe Tone

theobald-wolfe-tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone, a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members of the United Irishmen, is born on June 20, 1763, in Dublin. He is regarded as the father of Irish republicanism and leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

The son of a coach maker, Tone studies law and is called to the Irish bar in 1789 but soon gives up his practice. In October 1791 he helps found the Society of United Irishmen, initially a predominantly Protestant organization that works for parliamentary reforms, such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation. In Dublin in 1792 he organizes a Roman Catholic convention of elected delegates that force Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793. Tone himself, however, is anticlerical and hopes for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequel to the attainment of Irish political freedom.

By 1794, he and his United Irishmen friends begin to seek armed aid from Revolutionary France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort fails, Tone goes to the United States and obtains letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. In February 1796 Tone arrives in the French capital, presents his plan for a French invasion of Ireland, and is favourably received. The Directory then appoints one of the most brilliant young French generals, Lazare Hoche, to command the expedition and makes Tone an adjutant in the French army.

On December 16, 1796, Tone sails from Brest with 43 ships and nearly 14,000 men. The ships are badly handled and, after reaching the coast of west Cork and Kerry, are dispersed by a storm. Tone again brings an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797, but the principal French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, takes little interest. When insurrection breaks out in Ireland in May 1798, Tone can only obtain enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast. In September he enters Lough Swilly, County Donegal, with 3,000 men and is captured there.

At his trial in Dublin on November 10, 1798, he defiantly proclaims his undying hostility to England and his desire “in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.” He is found guilty and is sentenced to be hanged on November 12. Early in the morning of the day he is to be hanged, Tone cuts his throat with a penknife.

Theobald Wolfe Tone dies of his self-inflicted wound on November 19, 1798, at the age of 35 in Provost’s Prison, Dublin, not far from where he was born. He is buried in Bodenstown, County Kildare, near his birthplace at Sallins, and his grave is in the care of the National Graves Association.


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First Known Meeting of the Parliament of Ireland

parliament-of-ireland-coat-of-arms

The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare on June 18, 1264, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature. There is some evidence to suggest that the word “parliament” may have been in use as early as 1234.

There is nothing new about parliamentary assemblies in Ireland. The Normans, who begin to settle in Ireland in 1169, are the first to give Ireland a centralised administration. The Irish legal system and courts of law are, in large measure, inherited from them. So too is the Irish legislature which is directly descended from the parliament which develops in medieval Ireland.

The Parliament of Ireland is formally founded in 1297 by the Justiciar, Sir John Wogan, to represent the Irish and Anglo-Norman population of the Lordship of Ireland. It exists in Dublin from 1297 until 1800 and is comprised of two chambers – the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Lords consists of members of the Irish peerage and the bishops (after the Reformation, Church of Ireland bishops), while the Commons is directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise.

The main purpose of parliament is to approve taxes that are then levied by and for the Lordship of Ireland. Those who pay the bulk of taxation, the clergy, merchants, and landowners, naturally comprise the members. In 1541 the parliament votes to create the Kingdom of Ireland.

Over the centuries, the Irish parliament meets in a number of locations both inside and outside Dublin. The first meeting at Castledermot in June 1264 takes place some months earlier than the first English Parliament containing representatives of towns and cities. However, this Irish Parliament is a meeting of Irish nobles and bishops, not representatives of Irish people. Later, in the 15th century, Irish parliaments began to invite representatives of the people.

Among its most famous meeting places are Dublin Castle, the Bluecoat School, Chichester House and its final permanent home, the Irish Parliament House in College Green.


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The Acts of Union 1800

On January 1, 1801, the Acts of Union 1800 goes into effect uniting the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Acts of Union 1800 consists of two acts with the same long title, An Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Both are passed in 1800.

Before these Acts, Ireland had been in personal union with England since 1541, when the Parliament of Ireland had passed the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 proclaiming King Henry VIII of England to be King of Ireland. Both Ireland and England had come in personal union with Scotland with the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were united into a single kingdom named the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Irish parliament at that time was subject to a number of restrictions that placed it subservient to the Parliament of England and, following the union of England and Scotland, the Parliament of Great Britain.

In the century that followed the union of England and Scotland, Ireland gained effective legislative independence from Great Britain through the Constitution of 1782. However, access to institutional power in Ireland was restricted to a small minority, the so-called Anglo-Irish of the Protestant Ascendancy. Frustration at the lack of reform eventually led to a rebellion in 1798, involving a French invasion of Ireland and seeking complete independence from Great Britain. The rebellion was crushed with much bloodshed and the subsequent drive for union between Great Britain and Ireland that passed in 1800 was motivated at least in part by the belief that the rebellion was caused as much by loyalist brutality as by the United Irishmen.

Each Act had to be passed in the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland. The final passage of the Act in the Irish Parliament was achieved with substantial majorities, achieved in part according to contemporary documents through bribery, namely the awarding of peerages and honours to critics to get their votes.

Both Acts, though since amended, still remain in force in the United Kingdom but have been repealed in the Republic of Ireland.