1778 had coined the grandiose phrase that "the Irish Protestant could
never be free until the Irish Catholic had ceased to be a slave," and
who afterwards explained what he meant by saying that the liberty of the
Catholic was to be only such as was "entirely consistent with the
Protestant ascendancy," and that "the Protestant interest was his first
object." Ascendancy, then, in the mind of the ruling class in Ireland
was fundamental. What was its corollary? Dependence on England.
Ascendancies, whether based on creed or property, or, as in Ireland, on
both, cannot last in any white community without external support, and
the external support for ascendancy in Ireland was English force without
and English bribes within. There was the chain of causation, the vicious
circle rather; and yet Grattan, who never touched a bribe, thought he
had freed his beloved Ireland from the English influences which were
throttling her. He could not see that the more he wrestled for the
independence of a sham Parliament, while resisting its transformation
into a real Parliament, the more he strengthened those influences,
because he inevitably widened the gulf between Parliament and the Irish
people. The glamour his brilliant gifts had thrown over the Irish
Parliament only served to divert his own mind and the minds of other
talented and high-minded men from the seat of disease in Ireland. Time
and talent were wasted from the first over points of pride, trivialities
which seemed portentous to over-sensitive minds; metaphysical puzzles as
to the exact nature of the relations now existing between Ireland and
England; whether the repeal of the Poynings' Act and the Declaratory Act
were sufficient guarantees of freedom; whether Ireland herself should
nominate a Regent or accept the nomination from England. Meanwhile, the
sands were running out, and Ireland was a slave to a minute but powerful
minority of her sons and, only through them, to England.

Yet the heart of Ireland was sound. All the materials for regeneration