The Irish statesman and orator Henry Grattan (1746-1820) led the nationalist fight for Ireland's legislative independence from England, for parliamentary reform, and for Catholic emancipation.

Henry Grattan distinguished himself at Trinity College, Dublin, where he acquired his passion for the classics and for eloquent oratory. He left the university in 1767 and was called to the Irish bar in 1772. With another Irish patriot, Henry Flood, Grattan contributed articles to the nationalist Freeman's Journal. They were at first great friends and united in the Irish cause. Grattan entered Parliament in 1775, the same year in which Flood lost his position as parliamentary leader by accepting the office of vice-treasurer of Ireland. Grattan's eloquence quickly allowed him to move into the leadership that Flood had vacated.

The American Revolution helped bring Irish matters to a head, and in 1778-1779 Britain finally granted some of the concessions to Irish trade for which Grattan...