GRATTAN
I
A PLEA FOR IRISH LEGISLATIVE INDEPENDENCE[1]
(1780)
Born in 1746, died in 1830; was admitted to the Irish Bar in 1772; entered the Irish Parliament in 1775; secured the restoration of independence to the Irish Parliament in 1782; retired from the Irish Parliament in 1797; returned to the Irish Parliament in 1800, in order to oppose the Union; elected to the Imperial Parliament in 1806, remaining a member until his death.
Sir, I have entreated an attendance on this day that you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it.
If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woolen manufacture, or when the 6th of George I. declared this country to be dependent and subject to laws to be enacted by the Parliament of England, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience to seize the first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have administered to him an oath that he would consider himself a person separate
- ↑ From a speech delivered in the Irish Parliament, April 19, 1780, and described by Hardy in his "Life of Lord Charlemontt" as "never to be forgotten by those who heard it." In May, 1782, the Imperial Parliament passed the act declaring the Irish Parliament independent.
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