The Irish Parliament, a mediaeval body made up of the Irish House of Commons and the Irish House of Lords, and from which Roman Catholics had been excluded from both membership and voting for, had been subject to a number of restrictions imposed by English governments as to its ability to debate issues and take decisions, notably Poyning's Law of 1492. These restrictions were all lifted in 1782, producing a period of unheard-of legislative freedom. This period came to be known as Grattan's Parliament after Henry Grattan, a major campaigner for reform in the Parliament's Irish House of Commons.
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This was the constitution which Molyneux and Swift had denounced, which Flood had attacked, and which Grattan was to destroy.
Though now free from constitutional control it was no less subject than before to the influence of corruption, which the English government had wielded through the Irish borough owners, known as the "undertakers," or more directly through the great executive officers.
Grattan had married in 1782 Henrietta Fitzgerald, a lady descended from the ancient family of Desmond, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.
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