Act of Union and Legacy
Following the Act of Union in 1800, the Irish Parliament was abolished. A few Irish Patriots took up seats in the new unified British House of Commons in London, under the notional leadership of Grattan. Within a few years they had become almost entirely submerged within the British Whig Party, with whom they were allied, and disappeared from the political map.
Grattan's advocacy of liberal-minded moderate Irish nationalist self-rule with links to Britain had a resonance over the following century. It was taken up by Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association in the 1830s that intended to repeal the Act of Union; by the Young Ireland movement in the 1840s; and later by the Irish Parliamentary Party that campaigned for a restoration of Home Rule in Ireland. The IPP and its successors dominated the political scene in Ireland for decades until its defeat by the fully separatist Sinn Féin movement in the 1918 general election.
Read more about this topic: Irish Patriot Party
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