Grattan and O'Connell

The close of Grattan's career was marked by an incident which denotes the opening of another career not less important in the modern history of Ireland. Shortly before leaving Ireland for the last time Grattan received a deputation in Dublin from the Catholic Association, headed by Daniel O'Connell. For some years after Grattan's death the political story of Ireland resolves itself mainly into a record of the final struggle for Catholic Emancipation. Many changes in the industrial and social condition of Ireland had taken place since the beginning of that agitation. The success of the United States in their struggle for independence had opened up to the Irish the prospect of a new haven of refuge from religious penalties and from the miseries caused by an intolerable system of land tenure. The flood of emigration from Ireland to the United States had already begun, although it had not reached anything like the vast volume it attained in more recent days.