His father was from Ulster, some say County Tyrone. Rutledge was just 24 or 25 when, at the First Continental Congress on 28 September 1774, he said "I came with an idea of getting a Bill of Rights". On 14 October, Congress issued its Declaration and Resolves, written by John Dickinson (Wikipedia here).
The eventual Bill of Rights (the amendments to the new United States Constitution) would't be created until 15 years later in 1789. Rutledge had been reading Sir William Blackstone's recent volume Commentaries on the Laws of England written between 1765-69 (Wikipedia here). John Adams' personal copy is online here on Archive.org.
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