Henry Flood

The Right Honourable Henry Flood PC (Ire)
Portrait by Bartholomew Stoker.
Member of Parliament for Seaford
In office 1786–1790
Member of Parliament for Winchester
In office 1783–1784
Member of Parliament for Kilbeggan
In office 1783–1790
Member of Parliament for Enniskillen
In office 1777–1783
Member of Parliament for Longford Borough
In office 1768–1769
Member of Parliament for Callan
In office 1762–1776
Member of Parliament for Kilkenny County
In office 1759–1761
Personal details
Born	1732 Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland
Died	2 December 1791 (aged 59) Farmley, Kingdom of Ireland
Political party	Irish Patriot Party (Leader, 1760's - 1775)
Spouse(s)	Lady Frances Beresford
Parents	Warden Flood
Alma mater	Trinity College Christ Church
Profession	Politician
Religion	Church of Ireland

Henry Flood (1732 – 2 December 1791), Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient in the classics. He was a leading Irish politician, and a friend of Henry Grattan, the leader of the Irish Patriot Party.

His father was of good birth and fortune, but Henry suffered the stigma of being generally considered to be illegitimate. There is some confusion about the details but it seems that while his father and his mother Isabella Whiteside lived together as man and wife they were not legally married. Henry himself married Lady Frances Beresford, daughter of Marcus Beresford, 1st Earl of Tyrone, who brought him a large fortune.

In 1759, he entered the Irish parliament as member for Kilkenny County, a seat he held until 1761. There was at that time no party in the Irish House of Commons that could truly be called national, and until a few years before there had been none that deserved even the name of an opposition. The Irish parliament was still constitutionally subordinate to the English privy council; it had practically no powers of independent legislation, and none of controlling the policy of the executive, which was nominated by the ministers in London. Though the great majority of the people were Roman Catholics, no person of that faith could either enter parliament or exercise the franchise; the penal code, which made it almost impossible for a Roman Catholic to hold property, to follow a learned profession, or even to educate his children, and which in numerous particulars pressed severely on the Roman Catholics and subjected them to degrading conditions, was as yet unrepealed, though in practice largely obsolete; the industry and commerce of Ireland were throttled by restrictions imposed, in accordance with the economic theories of the period, in the interest of the rival trade of Great Britain. Men like Anthony Malone and Hely-Hutchinson fully realized the necessity for far-reaching reforms; and it only needed the ability and eloquence of Flood in the Irish House of Commons to raise up an independent party in parliament, and to create in the country a public opinion with definite intelligible aims.