Life
1740-1828; Middle Temple and Irish bar; opposed Catholic Relief and made
able speeches against the Union; Last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons.
See also Irish Book Lover, Vol. 4. ODNB DIB
[ top ]
Quotations
The Commercial System of Ireland reviewed and the question
of union discussed in an address to the merchants, manufacturers and coutnry
gentlemen of Ireland [2nd edn.] (Dublin 1799): ‘The consideration
of the great subject of unioin is fitter for a volume than a letter’
(p.4); ‘The readers wishes cannot exceed my own anxiety to get over
this retrospective view of our national occurrences, but I do assure him,
that a knowledged of past occurrences will be a necessary shelf against
the canting hypocrisy and plusible treachery of a minister.’ (p.20);
‘When republics and republicans are described as iolating every principle
of moral retitude, it behoves kings, and the respresentatives of kings,
to secure the admiration of the world by magnanimity and moderation.’
(p.96); ‘Every respecting man must recognise, in the deplorable extent
of religious animosity, the true and extact features of a short-lived
enthusiasm, operatin gon minds deparabed by superstition the most unworthy
and intolerant. And I defy any many to point out, in the luminous pages
of GIBBON, VOLTAIRE, ROBINSON, and HUME, a single instance where a Civil
War has not had the effect of giving a country a more determined aspect,
and more dreaded character - look at Rome under Marius - Sylla - Pompey
- Caesar - Anthony - Augustus - and look likewise at modern France - and
the scholar, the statesman, and the philosopher, will see the force and
weight of this observation’ (p.98-99; all quoted in Claire Connolly,
‘Writing the Union’, in Dáire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., Acts of Union:
The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union, Dublin:
Four Courts Press 2001, pp.176-79; 182.)
[ top ]
Commentary
Thomas Bartlett, ‘Britishness, Irishness and the Act
of Union’, in Dáire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., Acts of Union:
The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union, Dublin:
Four Courts Press 2001), writes: ‘The speaker, John Foster, the main
opponent of union, regarded an Irish parliament as an essential badge
of protestant nationhood (for him, protestant nationalism meant little
more than protestant ascendancy) and he urged his fellow Irish MPs not
to vote for a move from “an independent kingdom to an abject colony”.
Like Grattan’s pan-nationalist sentiments, Foster’s, too were
given short shrift. Edward Cooke, under-secretary at Dublin Castle and
closely involved in monitoring anti-unionist speeches, reports that Foster’
s arguneet were easily rebutted “except the obvious and irrefutable
objection per se of removing parliament to a distance.”’
(p.247.)
[ top ]
References
Belfast Public Library holds Collectanea Genealogica [n.d.]; Reports
of the Debate on the Regency Bill (1799); Speech of the Rt. Hon John Foster,
Speaker of the House of Commons of Ireland (1800)
[ top ]