(b. Dublin, 13 Apr. 1920) Irish; Minister for External Affairs 1954 – 7, Taoiseach (premier) 1973 – 7 The son of William T. Cosgrave, the first Premier of the Irish Free State, Cosgrave was first elected to the Dáil in 1943. He served as a Fine Gael member of the two interparty governments of 1948 – 51 and 1954 – 7; in the latter he was Minister for External Affairs. In 1955, on the Irish Republic's formal admission to the United Nations, Cosgrave headed the first Irish delegation to the General Assembly. In 1964 he chaired a policy committee of the Fine Gael party which produced the progressive-leaning Just Society paper. He became Taoiseach on 14 March 1973, following the electoral defeat of the Fianna Fáil party, when, for the third time in the post-war era, his Fine Gael party formed a coalition with Irish Labour.
Cosgrave's leadership style bore a marked resemblance to that of his father in the 1920s, being unflamboyant and consensual, and giving priority to law and order and internal political stability. He supported conservative social policies, voting against his government's own bill to liberalize the law on contraception. An effective party politician, like most at the time in Ireland his aim was more to hold office and patronage than to use it for particular policy purposes.
In December 1973 he led his government's delegation to the Sunningdale conference on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland, which led to the short-lived power-sharing administration. His government may have helped to cause its downfall by pressing for an all-Ireland dimension, the proposed Council of Ireland, which was too much for Unionists to stomach. In late 1976 Cosgrave was a central figure in a constitutional crisis involving the powers of the President and culminating in the resignation of President O'Dalaigh. Following a massive electoral defeat, Cosgrave resigned on 20 June 1977. He was succeeded as party leader by Garret FitzGerald, and retired from the Dáil in 1981.
Liam Cosgrave
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The son of the head of the Irish Free State government, Liam Cosgrave (born 1920) became foreign minister and later prime minister (1973-1977).
Liam Cosgrave was born in Dublin on April 30, 1920, the son of William T. and Louise (Flanagan) Cosgrave. He attended the Christian Brothers' School and St. Vincent's College in Dublin. Studying law at the King's Inn, he was called to the bar in 1943 and became a senior counsel in 1958.
Cosgrave's father was the leader of the government of the newly independent Ireland (Irish Free State) from 1922 to 1932. They laid the foundation of Irish democracy in the aftermath of the bloody civil war with the British. William Cosgrave's government had to first wage a civil war against hardline nationalists unhappy with the terms of the independence and then restore constitutional normalcy after years of insurrection and civil war.
In 1932 Eamon De Valera, the leader of the defeated forces in the civil war, but who had in 1926 formed a constitutional opposition party, Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny), came to power. He would remain as head of the government with two brief exceptions (1948-1951 and 1954-1957) until 1959. Furthermore, his party would remain in power, after he had been elected to the more honorific presidency of Ireland, until 1973. With defeat, the elder Cosgrave's party, Cumann nan Gaedheal (League of Gaels), became absorbed in a new coalition of opposition groups that took the name of Fine Gael (Tribe of Gaels). That party was unable to dent the overwhelming electoral support given to the populist and economic nationalist program of De Valera.
Young Cosgrave entered politics and was elected a Fine Gael deputy to Dáil Eireann, the Irish parliament, in 1943. He served as a parliamentary secretary to the minister for industry and commerce in the 1948 to 1951 coalition government, the first of the brief interruptions of the De Valera and Fianna Fáil ascendancy. More significantly, in the second coalition regime, 1954 to 1957, he was minister of external affairs and accordingly led the first Irish delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations, to which Ireland had been admitted in 1955.
In 1965 he became the leader of the Fine Gael Party. This was a period when both major parties in Ireland were undergoing considerable change. Fianna Fáil, under Taoiseach, or prime minister, Seal Lemass and his successor, Jack Lynch, had turned its back on self-sufficiency and isolationist economic ideals and had opted for increased international trade and foreign investment as the means of Irish economic modernization, culminating in Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC). Younger members of the Fine Gael Party were trying to shed the party's economic conservative image and present themselves as a "social justice"-minded alternative to the freewheeling capitalistic flavor Fianna Fáil had seemed to assume. Cosgrave, personally more conservative, was able to hold together the more traditional elements in Fine Gael and the "Young Turks."
In February 1973, the month after Ireland's formal entry to the EEC, a national election was won by a coalition of Fine Gael and the smaller Labour Party. The coalition had campaigned on a "14 point program" emphasizing economic and social welfare issues, especially housing and unemployment. Cosgrave became Taoiseach and included in his government Fine Gael figures as conservative as himself and more liberal party members such as Garret FitzGerald, as well as pragmatic but brilliant Labour members such as Conor Cruise O'Brien.
At a conference at Sunningdale, England, December 6 to 9, 1973, the British and Irish governments and political leaders from Northern Ireland established a power-sharing or coalition executive for a devolved Northern Irish government, whereby the minority would have a proportionate number of cabinet positions, and a projected "Council of Ireland" to deal with mutual problems. Fears that the latter portended eventual unification of Ireland created widespread discontent among Northern Irish Unionists, the Protestant majority. British elections in February 1974 ousted the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. His Labourite successor, Harold Wilson, was returned to power but had to govern without an absolute majority and capitulated to a Unionist general strike in Northern Ireland. This had brought the province to a standstill and toppled the power-sharing executive.
The violent spillover of the Northern Irish issue into the Irish Republic, such as the July 23, 1976, assassination of the British ambassador, prompted the Cosgrave government to push strict security measures. Before agreeing to sign the legislation which had been passed, the president of the Irish Republic, Cearbhall O'Dalaigh, exercised his constitutional option of referring the bills to the Supreme Court for advice on their constitutionality. His action provoked the minister for defense, Paddy Donegan, to label the president as "a thundering disgrace." O'Dalaigh interpreted the refusal of Cosgrave to dismiss a cabinet member who had made a partisan attack on the apolitical office of the presidency as grounds for himself to resign, which he did on October 22, 1976. The Cosgrave government sheltered itself from further embarrassment on the matter by not opposing the Fianna Fail nominee, Patrick Millery, as O'Dalaigh's successor. In July 1974 Cosgrave broke ranks with his own party and voted against an unsuccessful bid to liberalize the Irish law on contraceptives.
The coalition government with its promises of socially ameliorative programs came to power at the same time as the world-wide oil crisis, which had particularly severe effects on small nations such as Ireland with minimal natural resources, industry in a developing stage, and great dependence on imports. The efforts of the government to restrain a mainly foreign-induced inflation, to provide social services, to meet governmental expenditures, and to cope with serious unemployment were bound to weaken its political position. In June 1977 Fianna Fáil, running on a supply-side and populist manifesto promising economic recovery, job creation, and lessened taxes, swept the polls with a 20-seat majority and its greatest proportion of the vote in 39 years.
Questions have been raised that Liam Cosgrave was too conscious of his duty to follow in his father's footsteps that he failed to see the need to justify his actions and those of his government. He was a secretive man who never really revealed what motivated him. He used equivocation and ambiguity as a political tool, so much so that even his own party was uncertain as to his positions, such as on the controversial contraception issue. Because of this he called an early general election in 1977, completely misjudging the mood of the country. Had he waited a few more months to allow the country to experience the advantages of the upswing in the economy the election results would have been far different.
Probably the most significant feature of the Cosgrave government was its giving, by the Sunningdale Agreement, implied consent to the principle that Irish unity was dependent on the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland, a position from which succeeding Irish governments have not deviated.
Cosgrave resigned the leadership of the party and was succeeded by Garret FitzGerald. In 1981 he resigned from Dáil Eireann. He returned to public service, as Cathaoirleach of the Seanad (Leader of the Upper House) and served on the Industrial and Commercial Panel.
Further Reading
An excellent study of Irish politics in the era of Cosgrave's prominence is Bruce Arnold, What Kind of Country (1984). Recent and authoritative studies of Irish history to the eve or early stages of the Cosgrave ministry are F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (1973); John A. Murphy, Ireland in the Twentieth Century (1975); and Ronan Fanning, Independent Ireland (1983). In 1997, Stephen Collins examined The Cosgrave Legacy which focuses attention of Liam Cosgrave's role in government following his father's shining example.
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| Liam Cosgrave | |
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| In office 14 March 1973 – 5 July 1977 |
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| President | Éamon de Valera Erskine H. Childers Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh Patrick Hillery |
| Tánaiste | Brendan Corish |
| Preceded by | Jack Lynch |
| Succeeded by | Jack Lynch |
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| In office 2 June 1954 – 20 March 1957 |
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| Preceded by | Frank Aiken |
| Succeeded by | Frank Aiken |
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| Born | 13 April 1920 Dublin, Ireland |
| Political party | Fine Gael |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Liam Cosgrave (Irish: Liam Mac Cosgair; born 13 April 1920) served as the Taoiseach of Ireland between 1973 and 1977 and is the son of W. T. Cosgrave, Head of Government from 1922 to 1932).
Liam Cosgrave entered Irish politics in 1943 and retained his seat until his retirement in 1981.
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Early life
From an early age Liam Cosgrave displayed a keen interest in politics, discussing the topic with his father as a teenager before eventually joining Fine Gael at the age of 17, speaking at his first public meeting the same year. He was educated at Castleknock College, Dublin, and King's Inns. He studied law and was called to the Irish bar in 1943. To the surprise of his family, Liam decided to seek election to Dáil Éireann in the 1943 general election and was elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin County at the age of 23, sitting in the 11th Dáil alongside his father W. T. Cosgrave who was one of the founders of the Irish Free State in the 1920s. Cosgrave rapidly rose through the ranks of Fine Gael, becoming a parliamentary secretary when the party returned to power in 1948.
Minister
The first coalition Government collapsed in 1951. However in 1954 a second inter-party Government was formed. On this occasion Liam Cosgrave was given a cabinet position. As Minister for External Affairs Cosgrave took part in trade discussions and chaired the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 1955. He also successfully presided over Ireland's admittance to the United Nations, defining Irish foreign policy for decades in his first address to the General Assembly in 1956. These were important achievements for an Ireland of the time that was just finding its feet on the world stage after years of isolation after World War II.
Opposition
With Fine Gael back in opposition during the 1960s, an internal struggle for the soul of the party was beginning. A large body of members called on Fine Gael to move decisively to the left. A set of eight principles known as the Just Society was put forward to the party leadership. The principles called for higher state spending in Health and Social Welfare on top of a greater state role in the economy. Despite his conservative credentials, Cosgrave adopted a positive attitude to the Just Society document. Despite its radical plan, Fine Gael remained in opposition.
Fine Gael Leader
In 1965, when James Dillon retired as Fine Gael leader after the 1965 general election loss, Liam Cosgrave, as a senior party figure and son of the first parliamentary leader of Fine Gael, easily won the leadership. Throughout his leadership, Cosgrave was seen as dour and conservative but utterly trustworthy and honourable.[citation needed] He played a key role in the Arms Crisis, when, as leader of the opposition, he pressured then Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, to take action against senior ministers who were involved in importing arms intended for the Provisional IRA.[citation needed]
Cosgrave's determination to support government anti-terrorist legislation in votes in the Dáil, in the face of outright opposition from his party, almost cost him his leadership. The growing liberal wing in Fine Gael was opposing the Government's stringent laws on civil liberty grounds. Cosgrave put the security of the State and its institutions first. At the Fine Gael Ard Fheis in May 1972, Cosgrave faced down his political opponents in spectacular style. 1972 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the state and so was an important milestone in the history of Fine Gael. However, the FF government ignored the anniversary while liberals in Fine Gael were plotting to remove Cosgrave as leader. In a speech littered with references to Fine Gael's founding fathers, he contrasted the difficulties posed by the IRA in Northern Ireland with those faced by the first Free State government in dealing with the anti-treatyites. Departing from his script Cosgrave rounded on his leadership rivals. Asking delegates if they did any hunting Cosgrave declared that "... some of these commentators and critics are now like mongrel foxes; they are gone to ground but I'll dig them out, and the pack will chop them when they get them". A year later, Cosgrave was leading Fine Gael back into power.
Taoiseach
In February 1973, Lynch suddenly called a general election for the end of that month. He had hoped to capitalise on the disarray of the Opposition before Christmas and lead Fianna Fáil to an historic victory. To the surprise of many observers, Fine Gael and the Labour Party quickly announced a joint platform based on Fourteen Policy points that proved popular on the doorsteps, especially the proposal to take health charges off domestic rates. Pre-election manifestos were a new development in Irish politics at this stage. Fianna Fáil changed tack during the campaign and promised to abolish domestic rates completely. It did not save Lynch's government which was defeated on transfers between the opposition parties. Cosgrave led a National Coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party to victory in the 1973 general election. Ironically, the National Coalition parties received fewer votes than when they ran separately in 1969, but won because of tighter transfers to each other. It was the first non-Fianna Fáil government since the Second Inter-Party Government was elected in 1954. Cosgrave was determined not to alienate certain wings of his party in choosing his cabinet. The cabinet was described as being the "government of all talents", including such luminaries as future taoiseach and writer Garret FitzGerald, former United Nations diplomat, Conor Cruise O'Brien, television presenter and veterinary professor Justin Keating and others. Cosgrave balanced these with hardline Christian Democrats such as Richard Burke, a former teacher, Cork merchant prince Peter Barry and west Dublin farmer, Mark Clinton. As Taoiseach, at the United Nations, Cosgrave famously appealed to the Israelis and Palestinians (predominantly Jews and Muslims) "to settle their differences in accordance with Christian principles".[citation needed]
The National Coalition had a string of bad luck. It started with the world energy crisis triggered by the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, which caused inflationary problems. It suffered its first electoral defeat, when its odds-on favourite in the 1973 presidential election, Tom O'Higgins, was unexpectedly defeated by the Fianna Fáil candidate, Erskine H. Childers, who became President of Ireland.
The presidency dogged the National Coalition. President Childers died suddenly in November 1974. The agreed replacement, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, though a former Attorney General of Ireland (1946–48; 1951–53) and Chief Justice (1963–1973), was monumentally politically inexperienced and it showed. He needed guidance from the politically experienced Cosgrave. Unfortunately Cosgrave was someone who did not express his feelings openly (he only informed his wife, Vera, that he planned to resign on the morning he submitted it).[citation needed] Previously, presidents had been briefed by taoisigh. While the frequency under the previous Taoiseach had declined as President de Valera's health declined in old age, Liam Cosgrave briefed Presidents Childers and Ó Dálaigh on average once every six months.[citation needed]
Ó Dálaigh's decision in 1976 to exercise his power to refer a bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality brought him into conflict with the Fine Gael-Labour National Coalition. Following the assassination of the British Ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 23 July 1976 the government announced its intention to declare a state of emergency. Ó Dálaigh referred the resulting bill, the Emergency Powers Bill, to the Supreme Court. When the court ruled that the bill was constitutional he signed the bill into law on 16 October 1976. The same day an IRA action in Mountmellick resulted in the death of a member of the police force, the Garda Síochána. Ó Dálaigh's actions were seen by government ministers to have contributed to the killing of Garda Michael Clerkin. The following day Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan, on a visit to a barracks in Mullingar to open a canteen, attacked the President for sending the bill to the Supreme court, calling him a "thundering disgrace". Ó Dálaigh's private papers show that he considered the relationship between the President (as Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces) and the Minister for Defence had been "irrevocably broken" by the comments of the Minister in front of the army Chief of Staff and other high ranking officers. Donegan offered his resignation but Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave refused to accept it. This proved the last straw for Ó Dálaigh, who believed that Cosgrave had additionally failed to meet his constitutional obligation to regularly brief the President. Ó Dálaigh resigned on 22 October 1976, "to protect the dignity and independence of the presidency as an institution".
It has been argued that Cosgrave fell into the category of being a "chairman" rather than a "chief" as far as the day to day running of his Government was concerned. He was meticulous in adhering to the implementation of the Fourteen Point Plan on which the National Coalition was elected. Many of his cabinet ministers were greater stars in their own right than he was. To the surprise of many, he appointed Richie Ryan rather than Garret FitzGerald as his Minister for Finance when the Labour Party leader, Brendan Corish, declined the position in 1973. Ryan, a Dublin solicitor, was of typically conservative Fine Gael stock. Nevertheless Ryan (dubbed "Red Richie" by Fianna Fáil) implemented the Coalition's plans to replace death duties with a range of capital taxes, including Capital Gains Tax and Wealth Tax. Fianna Fáil bitterly opposed these new capital taxes and garnered considerable support from the wealthy and propertied classes as a result that would stand them in good stead in future elections.
Other achievements for the National Coalition were the building of 25,000 houses each year; considerable expansion of the social welfare system; the abolition of the necessity to pass an examination in Irish in order to qualify for a Leaving Certificate on completion of secondary school; some fourteen pieces of employment protection legislation; and a star performance by Garret FitzGerald as Foreign Minister, both on the European stage and in the Anglo Irish arena.
Cosgrave's Government invested huge energy in the quest for peace in Northern Ireland and he signed the Sunningdale Agreement that appeared to provide a solution to the Northern Irish problem in December, 1973. A powersharing executive was set up and a Council of Ireland was to be established but it all came crashing down in May 1974 as a consequence of the Ulster Workers' Council Strike.
The Cosgrave government's tough anti-terrorist laws alienated the public[citation needed], as did its tough austerity measures (Finance Minister Richie Ryan was nicknamed 'Richie Ruin' on a satirical TV programme). Marginal income tax rates came to 77% one year during the Coalition's reign. The electorate had not experienced unemployment and hardship of this nature since the fifties and the Government became quite unpopular. Combined with the Donegan affair and the hard line approach to law and order, the economic difficulties were quite damaging to Cosgrave and Corish's popularity. In May 1977, Cosgrave addressed a euphoric Fine Gael Ard Fheis on the eve of the general election. He made a strong attack on "blow-ins" who could "blow out". This was taken to be an attack on Bruce Arnold, the English born political writer in the Irish Independent newspaper who had been vociferously opposed to Cosgrave's policies particularly regarding the President and the wealth tax. While the Fine Gael grassroots loved it, the public were appalled.[citation needed] Cosgrave, together with James Tully, the Labour Minister for Local Government had redrawn the constituency boundaries to favour Fine Gael and Labour for the first time (the "Tullymander") and they confidently expected the new boundaries would win for them. Dublin, apart from Dun Laoghaire, was divided into some 13 three seat constituencies where Fine Gael and Labour were to take one seat each reducing Fianna Fáil to a minority rump in the capital. The election campaign started without Cosgrave taking any opinion polls in advance. If he had he would have known that Fianna Fáil were well ahead. At the time, the media did not take opinion polls as they exist today. During the campaign, the National Coalition made up some ground but the Fianna Fáil manifesto of give away promises (no rates, no car tax, and so forth) was far too attractive for the electorate and the National Coalition was heavily defeated, with Fianna Fáil winning an unprecedented massive parliamentary majority. Fianna Fáil won unexpected second seats in many Dublin constituencies, in particular. Its infamous giveaway manifesto would plunge the State into economic crisis during the late 1970s and much of the 1980s. The irony was that Fianna Fáil are likely to have won without the promises it had given.[citation needed] In the immediate aftermath, Liam Cosgrave resigned as Fine Gael leader. He was replaced by his former Foreign Minister, Garret FitzGerald. Cosgrave retired at the 1981 general election. Cosgrave can be accused of calling the 1977 election prematurely, as the Irish economy was recovering rapidly in early 1977 and a later election in the autumn or winter of that year may have been more propitious for the National Coalition.
Overview
Between them, the two Cosgraves, W. T. and Liam, served in Dáil Éireann from 1918 to 1981. Both men headed governments; Leadership of the Irish Free State fell onto W. T's shoulders after the assassination of Michael Collins. Liam's son Liam T. Cosgrave was also an Irish politician who was accused before the Mahon Tribunal of accepting illegal payments from property developers in return for voting to rezone property in Dublin: he resigned from the Fine Gael party when this became known, thereby effectively ending his political career and the Cosgrave political dynasty.
As of 2009, Cosgrave is both the oldest and earliest living former Taoiseach. At 89 years, he is the second longest lived Taoiseach, behind only Éamon de Valera. Moreover, he is the earliest surviving TD, having first been elected to the 11th Dáil in 1943, and the earliest surviving cabinet minister, having served in John A. Costello's second government as Minister for External Affairs from 1954 to 1957. He now lives at his residence in Knocklyon.
Government
The following government was led by Cosgrave:
- 14th Government of Ireland (March 1973–July 1977)
References
- This page incorporates information from this member's entry in the Oireachtas Members Database
See also
External links
- Liam Cosgrave's electoral history (ElectionsIreland.org)
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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Mentioned in
- William Thomas Cosgrave (Irish politician)
- Fine Gael (organization, Ireland – in politics)
- Garret Fitzgerald
- Republic of Ireland (country, Ireland)
- Cosgrave
- Donnchadh Ó Briain
- William J. Murphy (Labour politician)
- Government of the 20th Dáil
- Philip Cosgrave
- Just Society
- Michael Murphy (Irish politician)
- Richard Barry
- James Dillon (politician)
- Marian McGennis
