The Irish Ascendancy’s quest for reform had grave, unintended consequences for the future of Ireland. The seeds of faction and union were sown in the very nature of Ireland’s independence. The reformers and the Volunteers had initiated a sea-change in Irish conceptions of themselves and their country. Identity based on sectarian division began to be replaced by a more collective national identity and the development of the rhetoric of an Irish nation opposed to English imperial tyranny. As Jonah Barrington, himself swept up in the spirit of the time, remembered, starting in 1779 Ireland’s:
determination to claim her constitution from the British Government became unequivocal, and she began to assume the attitude and language of a nation “entitled to independence.” The sound of arms and the voice of freedom echoed from every quarter of the Island—distinctions were forgotten, or disregarded—every rank, every religion, alike caught the general feeling . . . she gradually arose from torpor and obscurity—her native spirit drew aside the curtain . . . and exhibited and armed and animated people claiming their natural rights.
It was, for Barrington and many others, the very moment of Ireland’s birth as a nation.27
And it was an increasingly politically aware nation as well. The Volunteer Movement was the key to this growing awareness and widening political participation. Originally, most had joined the Volunteers out of genuine fear of invasion or as a result of personal connections and loyalties to their local leaders or landlords. They had been raised for the defense of their homes by their traditional leaders and their motives had been self-interested. Once gathered, however, the mindset of the rank and file began to be transformed. In Barrington’s experience, “the blending of ranks, and more intimate connextion of the people . . . quickly effected an extensive and marked revolution in the minds and manners of the entire nation.” The experience of the Volunteer Movement:
opened the road to better information. Thus, he [the Volunteer] soon learned that the Irish people were deprived of political rights, and his country had endured political injuries: his ideas became enlarged, and quickly embraced more numerous and prouder objects; he began for the first time, to know his own importance to the state; and as knowledge advanced, the principles of constitutional independence better understood.
Thus equipped, the Irish nation, “familiarized with arms and more intimated with his superiors . . . every day felt the love of liberty increase.” The Volunteers thus provided a political education and helped spark a new adherence to political action and Irish independence.28
This shift in mentality helped drive the successful reforms of 1779 and 1782, but they also created a new national and imperial status quo that was not indefinitely viable. Like Britain’s American colonists at the beginning of the American War, the Irish Ascendancy, who formed the core of the reform movement, did not consider themselves to be inhabitants of a British colony or victims of British colonialism or imperialism: they viewed themselves as Englishmen who shared in the bounty and governance of the British Empire. As such, their initial protests were framed as efforts to reclaim and reassert these rights. But the repeated failure of their efforts and the intransigence of the British and Irish administrations caused a consequential shift in rhetoric. They continued to appeal to their rights under the English Bill of Rights but they also began to appeal to a conception of a unified Ireland in opposition to Britain and the British Empire. This was a crucial moment for the future of Irish politics, the creation of an oppositional Irish national identity. Just as the revolution mentally transformed British colonists from Englishmen to Americans, the war helped create a new sense of Irishness as a distinct and separate identity.
There was little time to celebrate the successes of 1782. Almost immediately there were debates and divides over questions still left unanswered. Front and center was the question of Ireland’s future relationship with Britain. Henry Flood and others feared that Britain’s grudging acceptance of Irish commercial, legislative, and judicial independence was a temporary expedient. Once the war was over and the danger passed, Britain, they warned, was sure to attempt to claw back control over Ireland. In Parliament, Flood focused his efforts on securing a demand that Britain pass new legislation guaranteeing Ireland’s newly won independence from Britain. Britain had repealed the act that granted its Parliament supremacy over Ireland, but it had not formally abjured the underlying principle. Flood thus wanted a positive act renouncing the very idea of Britain’s right to rule Ireland.
Flood and his allies were correct to worry about Britain’s commitment to Irish independence, but in 1782 the prospect of Britain regaining its supremacy over Ireland seemed distant, even foolish. Grattan dismissed Flood’s concerns, ridiculing the very idea that Ireland’s independence, her natural, inalienable rights required the acquiescence, let alone the protection, of foreign, English laws. “If the security that the honourable gentleman desires be a British statute,” Grattan thundered, “I reject it: I would reject Magna Charta under a British statute. We have not come to England for a charter, but with a charter; and we have asked her to cancel all her declarations made in opposition to it. This is the true idea of the situation of Ireland: no man will be content with less than a free constitution; and I trust no man will be frantic enough to hazard that, in attempting to gain more.” He continued:
We are, he [Flood] had said, independent of the Parliament of England by the ancient charters of Ireland; and then he calls on that Parliament to give Ireland liberty: he first proposes to measure a transaction common to both nations, by the municipal law which is peculiar to each, and thus subjects his country to the comment of Westminster Hall: he calls for legal security by operation of statute, and subjects his liberty to the Parliament of England: he proceeds insensibly on the principle of an ancient hereditary supremacy in the British nation; and he proceeds on the idea of an inferior country, who cannot measure a joint transaction by rules which obtain between equal nations.
See America: the establishment of American independence is, in the opinion of some of the judges of England, illegal. According to the municipal laws of England, no English statute has expressly recognized her independence; the statute that should have enabled the King to do so is not expressed. According to this, America has no legal security, no explicit emancipation. Does America complain? Does she expostulate, that “her liberty is equivocal, placed on construction and the fleeting base of interpretation?” Does she put questions to the twelve judges of England to learn the privileges of the thirteen states of America? No! America is too high for such expostulation; America is not only free, but she thinks like a free country; and having given herself liberty, does not ask for legal security under the laws of any other nation.29
Grattan was an indefatigable champion of an independent Irish nation, but he was still careful to stress the importance of Ireland’s connections to George III and Britain. For men like Grattan, alienating Britain by demanding further, and in his view unnecessary, concessions risked destroying hopes for a reconceived British Empire. Grattan and his supporters envisioned independent Ireland as an equal partner in a new imperial confederation, bound together by a common king and shared economic and military interests. To cement this new Empire of Great Britain and Ireland, Ireland’s Parliament, led by Grattan, went to great lengths to assure the king of their continued loyalty. In their “Humble Address” to George III, they stressed their “unfeigned attachment to his royal person and government” and promised that Britain could “rely on our affection.” “We remember,” the address continued:
and do repeat our determination to stand and fall with the British Nation . . . Common interest, perpetual connection, the recent conduct of Great Britain, a native affection to the British name and nation, together with the constitution which we have recovered, and the high reputation which we possess, must ever decide the wishes as well as the interest of Ireland, to perpetuate the harmony, stability, and glory of the empire. Accordingly, we assure His Majesty, that we learn, w
ith singular satisfaction, the account of his brilliant successes in the East and West Indies, gratified at one and the same instant in our dearest wishes, — the freedom of Ireland and glory of Great Britain.30
Lest the Irish Parliament’s commitment to Britain be seen as a matter of mere words, Ireland also pledged 20,000 sailors and £100,000 for “the common defence of the empire” and urged its Members of Parliament to raise men for the war effort, “manifesting their zeal for the common cause of Great Britain and Ireland.”31
That such demonstrations of loyalty could come so closely on the heels of cries for freedom and condemnations of British barbarity may appear strange, but for most members of the Protestant Ascendancy 1782 was the end of the Irish Revolution, not the beginning, a time to consolidate their gains rather than continue the work of reform. For many Catholics, Dissenters, and radicals, however, the intoxicating but incomplete success of 1782 seemed a mere prelude to full equality or a true democratic revolution. Catholics and some Protestants called for a complete repeal of the Penal Laws that kept Ireland’s Catholic majority from owning land, holding office, or worshipping freely. Grattan and other Patriots backed Catholic emancipation in Parliament, arguing that Ireland’s Catholics had proved their mettle during the crisis of 1778–9. They had earned the right to be emancipated.
[T]heir conduct . . . should fully convince us of their true attachment to their country. When this country had resolved no longer to crouch beneath the burden of oppression that England had laid upon her, when she armed in defence of her rights, and a high-spirited people demanded a free trade, did the Roman Catholics desert their countrymen? No; they were found among the foremost. When it was afterwards thought necessary to assert a free constitution, the Roman Catholics displayed their public virtue; they did not endeavour to take advantage of your situation; they did not endeavour to make terms for themselves, but they entered frankly and heartily into the cause of their country, judging by their own virtue that they might depend upon your generosity for their reward . . . In 1779 when the fleets of Bourbon hovered on our coasts, and the Irish nation roused herself to arms, did the Roman Catholics stand aloof? or did they, as might be expected from their oppressed situation, offer assistance to the enemy? No; they poured in subscriptions for the service of their country, or they pressed into the ranks of her glorious volunteers.32
Beyond gratitude, there were other reasons to grant Catholic Relief. For Grattan, the creation of a unified Irish nation was one of the greater goals of the revolution. If Ireland was to remain independent, if Ireland was to reach its true potential, all Irishmen, Catholics and Protestants alike, must embrace a sense of common identity and common causes. The question was not simply about property rights or freedom of worship, but:
whether we shall be a Protestant settlement or an Irish nation? whether we shall throw open the gates of the temple of liberty to all our countrymen, or whether we shall confine them in bondage by penal laws? So long as the penal code remains, we never can be a great nation. The penal code is the shell in which the Protestant power has been hatched, and now it has become a bird it must burst the shell or perish in it.33
Many among the Ascendancy disagreed with Grattan and his allies. Though Catholics had enthusiastically supported the Volunteer Movement, donating money and in some cases even joining Volunteer units, the Volunteers as a whole were deeply divided on the Catholic question. The majority of Volunteers, especially among the leadership, felt there was more to be gained from Catholic support than there was to fear from the relaxation of the Penal Laws. Volunteer support contributed considerably to the passage of Catholic Relief Acts in 1778 and 1782, which in turn helped to secure Catholic support for the Volunteers and the British war effort. By 1779 Catholics were joining Volunteer companies in significant numbers in some areas and holding fasts throughout the country as a sign of solidarity. But distrust remained. Even after the passage of two Catholic Relief Acts, the Catholic hierarchy remained wary of the Volunteers, and for many Protestants the feeling was mutual. At the Dungannon Volunteer Convention in 1782 the representatives voted to fully support Catholic Relief, but at the same time its members still resolved that some restrictions on Catholics should remain in place for the safety and security of the country. This ambiguous position was common. That the Penal Laws should be relaxed was largely accepted, but that Catholics should be granted full equality was, for a significant number of Protestants including Volunteers, a step too far.34
When the issue was proposed in Parliament in 1782, some of the most prominent leaders of the Patriot Party likewise questioned the wisdom of giving full rights to the Catholic majority. In debates on Catholic Relief, many of the most influential members of the Patriot Party were keen to put the brakes on what they now considered runaway reform. Henry Flood, leading light of the Patriot Party, made clear the proper limits of reform. Flood spoke vociferously against full emancipation for Ireland’s Catholics, arguing that while he was in favor of religious toleration, it was necessary to prevent Catholics from gaining “any influence in elections.” Full emancipation, he contended, “goes beyond toleration; it gives them a power, and tends to make a change in the state.” The Penal Laws, he continued, were not persecution of Catholics “but political necessity”; tyranny and persecution would naturally follow in the wake of Catholic suffrage, a lesson that should have been learned in 1688. The consequence of granting Catholics full equality with Protestants was thus the death of “a protestant constitution.” “We wish to extend toleration to Roman Catholics,” Flood concluded, but “we do not wish to shake the government.”35
Even Grattan granted that the “prejudices” of the Protestant population must be taken into account when weighing how much to grant Ireland’s Catholics. In the end, perhaps his most persuasive argument in favor of granting Catholic Relief was to illustrate that granting Catholics greater property rights and greater religious freedom gave them “no new power in the state.” Though he spoke passionately of Catholic sacrifice and eloquently in favor of granting toleration, Grattan conceded that granting Catholics full political equality was both unrealistic and potentially dangerous. Indeed, one of the greatest compliments he offered Ireland’s Catholics was that their recent actions showed that either they were willing to “depart” from their creed “or . . . do not carry its principles into life.” If Ireland’s Catholics only deserved toleration because they had ignored the principles of their faith, there was little reason to suppose they did not remain a possible threat in the minds of the country’s ruling Protestant minority.36
In 1782 Parliament passed a compromise Catholic Relief Bill that granted Catholics full property rights and freedom of worship but did not give Ireland’s majority full political equality. Catholics and their supporters in the Patriot Party were disappointed, but there remained hope that the 1782 Relief Act was the first step in an incremental reform process. In reality, however, many Protestants opposed further emancipation. The outbreak of sectarian violence in the 1780s seemed only to confirm Protestant prejudices. For Ireland’s Protestants, conditioned to live in perpetual terror of a rebellious Catholic population, the eruption of clashes between Catholics and Protestants proved that Grattan’s hope that toleration would ensure unity and loyalty was wishful thinking.
Catholics were not the only Irishmen to press for further reform in the years after 1782. Radical Patriots and Dissenters, especially in Dublin and Belfast, hoped that the legislative independence secured by the Volunteers would lead to parliamentary reform. Though now free from British supremacy, Ireland’s political system remained deeply undemocratic. Entrenched undertakers and officeholders controlled many parliamentary seats and judicial posts, and representation in Parliament was unequally distributed across the country. With dissatisfaction with the current system widespread, there was belief in many quarters that further reform was necessary. As a later commentator put it, “what had been conceded by the British legislature . . . did not suffice for the rising spir
it of the Irish nation,” and within a year of their revolutionary success in 1782, renewed pressure was building to complete the work of reform. Radical elements among the Volunteers were in the vanguard.
In 1783, they sent reform proposals to Lord Charlemont, their overall commander and leader of the Patriot Party in the House of Lords. Charlemont’s support for their proposals was only lukewarm, but nonetheless, later in the year delegates from the country’s Volunteer units once more gathered together at Dungannon, and then in November in Dublin in a National Convention, where they attempt to develop a clear platform and direct further reform of Ireland’s government. With the support and guidance of Henry Flood—though no friend of Catholic emancipation, he remained an advocate of further parliamentary reform—the National Convention met for nearly three weeks before eventually agreeing on a series of demands to be submitted to Parliament. Their complaints and demands closely resembled those of reformers in Britain: regular parliaments as a means of limiting the power of any one ministry; the elimination of rotten boroughs and the addition of more urban seats to more adequately address the proportionate representation of an increasingly urban society; a crackdown on placemen who allowed elites to capture electoral power; and the restriction of absentees, often English aristocrats rewarded with Irish titles and lands, and paid annuities out of Irish coffers.37
Once agreed upon, the platform of the National Convention was presented by Henry Flood as a bill in Parliament where it received the support of Grattan and other influential Patriots. The situation, however, had changed. The American Revolution had ended with the Peace of Paris in 1783. The end of the immediate wartime crisis meant there was less pressure to accommodate the demands of reformers. At the same time, the disorder of the war years ensured that most viewed reform suspiciously, as likely to lead to a renewal of the chaos of the war. As would happen around the world in the wake of this great war for and against empire, the initial victory of the forces of democracy was quickly undercut by a conservative reaction. Grattan’s Parliament represented property rather than people, the establishment rather than the powerless, and even among the Volunteers there were concerns about the dangerous radicalism growing in the ranks and among Ireland’s Catholics and Dissenters.
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