Liam Cosgrave
Liam Cosgrave In Later Years
Liam Cosgrave (born 13 April 1920) is a former Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach (1973–77) and as Leader of Fine Gael (1965–77). He was a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1943 to 1981.
Born in Dublin, Cosgrave was the son of W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council in the newly formed Irish Free State. After qualifying as a barrister he decided to embark on a political career. He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1943 general election and sat in opposition alongside his father. The formation of the first inter-party government in 1948 saw Cosgrave become a Parliamentary Secretary to Taoiseach John A. Costello. He formally became a cabinet member in 1954 when he was appointed Minister for External Affairs. The highlight of his three-year tenure was Ireland's successful entry into the United Nations. In 1965 Cosgrave was the unanimous choice of his colleagues to succeed James Dillon as leader of Fine Gael. He lost the 1969 general election to the incumbent Jack Lynch, but won the 1973 general election and became Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-Labour Party government.
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, and
was regarded as being by far the most able and active of Fine Gael's
newer TDs. The party was, however, at an extremely low ebb in the 1940s
spending many years in opposition. Cosgrave wrote to the Party Leader,
Richard Mulcahy, in May, 1947, on the poor attendance in the Dail, and
informed his leader that "I cannot any longer conscientiously ask the
public to support the party as a party, and in the circumstances I do
not propose to speak at meetings outside my constituency." Nevertheless,
Cosgrave became the parliamentary secretary to the Taoiseach and Chief
Whip when the party returned to power in 1948. Mulcahy, while remaining
leader of Fine Gael, allowed John A Costello to become Taoiseach of the Inter Party Government as the latter had wider appeal and acceptance.
The first coalition Government collapsed in 1951. However in 1954 a
second inter-party Government was formed. On this occasion Liam
Cosgrave, at the age of 34, 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 presided over Ireland's admittance to the United Nations
in 1955. Cosgrave outlined the three principles of his foreign policy
to the Dail in June,1956, the first was adherence to the principles of
the UN Charter, the second was independence and non-alignment, but the
third made clear where Ireland's sympathies lay: "to do whatever we can
as a member of the UN to preserve the Christian civilisation of which we
are a part and with that end in view to support whenever possible those
powers principally responsible for the defence of the free world in
their resistance to the spread of communist power and influence."
Ireland was non aligned in favour of the United States. The second Inter
Party government collapsed amid severely deflationary policies set by
the patrician Minister for Finance, Gerard Sweetman,
and Cosgrave held Sweetman personally responsible for Fine Gael's
defeat in 1957, and told him so, reportedly stating that Fine Gael "was
no longer led by people living in big houses at the end of long
avenues." He did not speak to Sweetman for some years.
Cosgrave remained active in opposition but he privately supported
Fianna Fáil's referendum to abolish the system of proportional
representation in June, 1959, which was defeated. This opposition was to
count against him later that year in the leadership contest. In
October, 1959, the dual leadership of Fine Gael, Mulcahy and Costello,
stood down. Costello wanted to continue his practice as a senior counsel
as well as being leader. He had asked Cosgrave to be his "managing
director" in the Dail while he was absent on legal work. Cosgrave, not
surprisingly, had declined this. James Dillon and Cosgrave contested the
leadership with Dillon decisively elected. 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 towards social democracy. A set of eight principles known as
the Just Society was put forward to the party leadership by
Declan Costello, the son of John A Costello, the former Taoiseach. 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 somewhat positive attitude to the Just
Society document. Nevertheless, Fianna Fáil went on to win the 1965
General Election and Fine Gael remained in opposition.
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. He led his
party to defeat in the 1969 election and was under constant threat and
challenge by younger more social democratic elements represented by
Garret FitzGerald who was elected to the 1969 Dáil. Cosgrave's erstwhile
opponent, Declan Costello, had retired in 1969. Cosgrave's fortunes
changed in 1970. 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. The information had been leaked to him by a member of the Garda Special Branch.[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 Irish Free 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". Despite being criticized for taking a "partionist"
or unionist stance in his speech, Cosgrave was leading Fine Gael back
into power a year later. Cosgrave supported the Government's Offences
Against the State (Amendment) Bill in November, 1972, despite the
position taken by Fine Gael to oppose the Bill.
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.
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.
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 an early electoral defeat in the 1973 presidential election, when Fine Gael candidate Tom O'Higgins was defeated by the Fianna Fáil candidate, Erskine H. Childers, who became President of Ireland.
In December 1973, the Supreme Court declared the ban on the importation of contraceptives by married persons to be unconstitutional. Patrick Cooney, the Minister for Justice,
introduced legislation in 1974 to regulate and allow for married
couples to obtain contraceptives. Fianna Fáil opposed any liberalisation
of the law on family planning and fought the measure in the Dáil on
grounds of protection of public morality and health. In line with his
conservative credentials, and on a free vote, Cosgrave, without warning,
crossed the floor to help defeat his own Government's bill in the
summer of 1974.
The presidency dogged the National Coalition. Erskine Childers had
sought the presidency with promises of making the office more open and
hands-on, in particular with plans to create a think tank within Aras an Uachtarain
to develop an outline for Ireland's future. Cosgrave refused to allow
it, and frustrated Childers' plans to break with the restrained
precedent of his office.
President Childers died suddenly in November 1974. The agreed replacement was Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, a former Attorney General of Ireland and Chief Justice. O'Dalaigh was a member of Fianna Fáil
and had run unsuccessfully for election as a TD. O'Dalaigh was also a
noted critic of the curtailment of free speech and was highly critical
of the introduction of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, which forbade the broadcast of the voices of Sinn Féin
members. This put him at odds with Cosgrave, whose government had
strengthened the act. Cosgrave, as such, maintained a marked distance
from Aras an Uachtarain; whereas previously, presidents had been briefed
by taoisigh
once a month, Cosgrave briefed Presidents Childers and Ó Dálaigh on
average once every six months. In addition, Cosgrave frequently
interfered in Ó Dálaigh's constitutional role as the state's
representative to foreign governments; he was not permitted to receive
the Legion of Honour from France, although former president Sean T. O'Kelly had previously received it, and Cosgrave attended the United States' bicentennial celebrations in 1976 in Ó Dálaigh's place.
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 more
direct conflict with the National Coalition. The government had
introduced the Emergency Powers Bill following the assassination in July
of the British Ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, by the IRA; it had passed the Dáil on 21 September. After consultation with the Council of State,
Ó Dálaigh referred the bill to the Supreme Court two days later.
Although the court ruled that the bill was constitutional, and Ó Dálaigh
subsequently signed the bill into law on 16 October, an IRA action on
the same day in Mountmellick resulted in the death of a member of Garda
Michael Clerkin. Cosgrave's government, already infuriated, blamed Ó
Dálaigh's delaying enactment of the bill for Clerkin's murder. On 18 October Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan attacked the President for sending the bill to the Supreme court, calling him a "thundering disgrace".
Cosgrave called to inform the president of Donegan's speech, but
refused to meet with him in person to discuss the matter owing to his
dislike for Ó Dálaigh, fueling the president's anger; he refused to
receive Donegan when he came to personally apologize.
When Cosgrave then refused to accept Donegan's resignation, this proved
the last straw for Ó Dálaigh, who resigned on 22 October 1976 "to
protect the dignity and independence of the presidency as an
institution."
Cosgrave's Government 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. In addition, many Republican voters were angered by what they saw as Cosgrave's harsh line on the PIRA and the handling of the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings which resulted in the perpetrators walking scot-free. In addition both the Irish Times and the Irish Press, which was then edited by Tim Pat Coogan,
were extremely critical of the government's curtailment of freedom of
speech and in particular of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Conor Cruise O'Brien which was used against the IRA. Tim Pat Coogan declared what he dubbed "editorial war" on the government after a, now notorious, interview between Bernard Nossiter of the Washington Post
and O'Brien in August 1976 regarding the passage of the Emergency
Powers Bill. During the course of the interview O'Brien stated that he
would've liked the bill to be used against teachers who glorified Irish
revolutionaries and against newspaper editors who published letters in
support of Republicans.
Cosgrave was accused of taking an anti-republican or pro-unionist line
regarding the north. During this period, on 17 March 1976, he was also
invited to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, the third Irish
leader to do so.
The Cosgrave government's tough anti-terrorist laws alienated the public, as did its tough austerity measures (Finance Minister Richie Ryan was nicknamed 'Richie Ruin' on a satirical TV programme, Hall's Pictorial Weekly).
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 or blow up".
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.
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 -
therefore not knowing 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.
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.
In 1981, Cosgrave retired as Dáil Deputy for Dun Laoghaire to be
replaced by his son, Liam junior. He has effectively withdrawn from
public life for a third of a century, emerging from time to time to
attend funerals of his former colleagues.
In 2010, Cosgrave made a rare public appearance for the launch of The Reluctant Taoiseach, a book about former Taoiseach John A. Costello written by David McCullagh.
He receives annual pension payments of €133,025.
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 and pleaded guilty to criminal charges and
was disqualified from continuing in his legal practice.
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