Jack Lynch
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John Mary
"Jack" Lynch (Irish:
Seán Ó Loinsigh;
15 August 1917 – 20 October 1999) was the fourth Taoiseach of Ireland, serving two terms in office; 1966 to
1973 and 1977 to 1979.
Lynch was first
elected to Dáil Éireann
as a TD for
Prior to his
political career Lynch had a successful sporting career as a dual player
of Gaelic
games. He played hurling with his local club Glen
Rovers and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1950. Lynch
also played Gaelic football with his local club St.
Nicholas' and with the
Lynch's status
as one of the all-time greats is self-evident. In a senior inter-county career
that lasted for fourteen years he won five All-Ireland titles, seven Munster titles, three National Hurling League titles and seven Railway Cup
titles. In a senior inter-county football career that lasted for ten years
Lynch won one All-Ireland title, two Munster titles and one Railway
Cup title. Lynch was later named at midfield on the GAA Hurling Team of the Century and
the GAA Hurling Team of the Millennium
Early and private life
John Mary Lynch
was born on 15 August 1917, just yards from the famous Shandon
bells and St. Anne's in Cork City. The youngest of five boys, with two girls
born after him, Jack, as he was known, was generally regarded as the "wild
boy" of the family. He was educated at St. Vincent's Convent on
Lynch began
working at the Cork Circuit Court as a clerk while still only nineteen years
old. His work in the court ignited his interest in law and in 1941 he began a
night course at University College Cork studying law. After
two years in UCC he moved to Dublin to complete his studies at King's
Inns. While continuing his studies he started work with the Department of
Justice. In 1945 Lynch was called to the Bar and had to decide whether to
remain in his Civil Service job or practice as a barrister. Lynch made the
decision (literally on the toss of a coin) to move back to
It was in 1943,
while on holidays in Glengariff, West Cork, that
Lynch met his future wife, Máirín O'Connor, the
daughter of a
Sporting life
From an early
age, Lynch showed an enormous interest and great accomplishment as a sportsman.
Rugby
union, soccer, swimming and handball
were all favourite pastimes for Lynch, however it was
the sports of Gaelic football and hurling where
Lynch showed particular flair.
Lynch played his
club hurling
with the famous Glen Rovers club in the Blackpool
area of
Lynch also
played club football with "the Glen’s" sister club St.
Nicholas. Once again he enjoyed a successful underage career,
winning back-to-back county minor titles in 1932 and 1933. Lynch won an
intermediate county title in 1937, before adding a senior county football championship
medal to his collection in 1938. Lynch won his second county football medal
with "St. Nick’s" in 1941. While working in
By the late
1930s Lynch was a dual player with the Cork senior
hurling and senior football teams. In 1939 he became the first,
and only player, in history to captain both the inter-county football and
hurling teams in the same year. That year he won his first Munster hurling title, however,
Kilkenny later accounted for
In 1942 Lynch
was selected as
In 1945
Lynch captured a
sixth
Even at the
height of his career, Lynch had come to be regarded as one of the all-time
greats of Gaelic games. His contribution to the game of hurling
was first recognised when he was named as the
"Hurling Captain of the Forties". In the centenary year of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1984
Lynch was named on the "Hurling Team of the Century". At the special
centenary All-Ireland final in Semple Stadium he received one of the loudest cheers
and rounds of applause when all the former All-Ireland winning hurling captains
were introduced to the crowd. Shortly after his death in 1999 Lynch’s
reputation as one of the true greats of the game was further cemented when he
was named on the "Hurling Team of the Millennium".
In 1946 Lynch
had his first brush with politics when he was asked by his local Fianna Fáil cumann
to stand for the Dáil in a by-election. He declined on this occasion,
due to his lack of political experience, but indicated that he would be
interested in standing in the next general election. In 1947 Lynch refused a
similar offer to stand by the new political party Clann na Poblachta. A general
election was eventually called for February 1948,
Lynch topped the poll for the Cork Borough constituency
and became a Fianna Fáil TD
in the 13th
Dáil. Although Fianna Fáil lost the election and were out of power for the first
time in sixteen years, Lynch became speech writer and research assistant for
the party leader, Éamon de Valera.
In 1951 Fianna Fáil were
back in power and Lynch was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the
Government, with special responsibility for Gaeltacht areas. The party was out of power again
between 1954 and 1957. During this period Lynch served as Fianna
Fáil Spokesperson on the Gaeltacht.
In 1957 Fianna Fáil
returned to power and de Valera headed his last government. Lynch, at 39,
became the youngest member to join the government,
as Minister for Education, as well as holding the Gaeltacht
portfolio for a short while. Lynch introduced innovative legislation, such as:
Minister for Industry &
Commerce
In 1959 de
Valera was elected President of Ireland and Seán Lemass became the new Taoiseach and
Fianna Fáil leader. Lynch
was promoted to Lemass' old portfolio as Minister for
Industry & Commerce. Here he inherited the most dynamic department in the government, however, having replaced such a political giant,
Lynch felt that his own scope for change was severely limited. Lynch was
described as not being the most innovative of ministers but was particularly
attentive when it came to legislation and detail. It was in this department
where Lynch worked closely with Lemass and T.K.
Whitaker in generating economic growth and implementing the Programme for Economic Expansion. He was also noted for his
astuteness in solving several industrial disputes during his tenure at the
Department.
In 1965 Lemass was once again re-elected Taoiseach. The big change
was the retirement of such political heavyweights as James Ryan and Seán MacEntee, with Lynch
taking over from the former as Minister for Finance. This appointment was
particularly significant because Lemass was coming to
the end of his premiership and wanted to prepare a successor. As a result Lynch
took charge of the second most important position in the Government, gaining
widespread experience in a number of affairs, and accompanying Lemass to London to sign one of the most important trade agreements
between Ireland and the United
Kingdom. One occasion in which Lynch's authority was seen to be undermined
as Minister for Finance was when the Minister for Education, Donagh O'Malley, announced that the government would
provide free secondary school education for all. This proposal had not been
discussed at Cabinet level as would be required to fund such a service. It
subsequently transpired that Lemass had previously
agreed the decision without cabinet discussion as was required.
Lemass retired in
1966 after 7 years in the position and a leadership race (the first contested
race in the history of the party) threatened to tear Fianna
Fáil apart. Lynch, and another favourite
of Lemass's, Patrick
Hillery, ruled themselves out of the leadership election from the
very beginning, however, other candidates such as Charles
Haughey, George
Colley and Neil Blaney threw their hats
into the ring immediately. None of the candidates that were being offered to
the party seemed particularly appealing and Lemass'
made one last attempt to coax either Hillery or Lynch
to join the race as a compromise candidate. Hillery
remained adamant that he did not want the leadership and eventually Lynch
allowed his name to go forward. Upon hearing this Haughey
and Blaney, the latter having never really entered
the race in the first place, withdrew and announced their support for Lynch.
Colley refused to withdraw and when it was put to a ballot Lynch comfortably
defeated him by 52 votes to 19. Lynch was thus elected Taoiseach and
leader of Fianna Fáil on 10
November 1966.
The Lynch
succession however, was not a smooth one. Three men had openly expressed
ambitions to be Taoiseach, Haughey, Blaney and Colley. Three other cabinet ministers had also
contemplated running - Brian Lenihan, Kevin
Boland and Donagh O'Malley.
Because Lynch
was elected as somewhat of a "compromise candidate" it appeared to many that he would only remain as an interim Taoiseach.
This thought could not be further from his mind, and he outlined this intentions shortly after coming to power. Lynch took
particular exception to the title "Interim Taoiseach" or "Reluctant
Taoiseach". He had no intention of stepping aside after a few years in favour of one of the other candidates who had been
unsuccessful against him in 1966. He was however reluctant in naming his first
Cabinet. He believed that the existing members of the government owed their
positions to Lemass, and so he retained the entire
Cabinet, albeit with some members moving to different departments. Lynch
adopted a chairman-like approach to government allowing his Ministers a free
run in their respective Departments. He continued the modernising
and liberal approach that Lemass had begun, albeit at
a slower pace. Lynch was lucky in the timing of Lemass's
resignation. The new Taoiseach now had almost a full Dáil
term before the next general election.
With Fianna Fáil having been in
power for eleven years by 1968, Lynch was persuaded once again to make an
attempt to abolish the proportional representation method of
voting in general elections in favour of a
first-past-the-post system like in the United
Kingdom. However, the campaign generated little enthusiasm, even within Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael
and the Labour Party
opposed the referendum when it transpired that Fianna
Fáil could win up to 80 or 90 seats in a 144 seat Dáil
if the motion was passed. Much like 1959, when the party tried to make the same
referendum, the electorate believed this to be an attempt to institutionalise Fianna Fáil in power, and thus they rejected the motion put to
them. This cast doubts on Lynch and his ability to win a general election, however,
he proved his critics wrong in the 1969 general election when Fianna Fáil won its first overall
majority since Éamon de Valera in 1957, and Lynch
proved himself to be a huge electoral asset for the party.
Northern
Ireland, and Lynch's attitude to the situation which was about to develop
there would come to define his first tenure as Taoiseach. Lynch continued Lemass's approach in regard to relations with
Shortly after
Lynch's election victory, tensions in Northern
Ireland finally spilled over and "the troubles"
began. The sight of refugees from the North teeming across the border turned
public opinion in the Republic. The Battle of the Bogside
in Derry between
the Royal Ulster Constabulary and residents
in August 1969 prompted Lynch to make what some people consider one of the most
important broadcasts to the nation on Irish television,
commenting on the ever-increasingly violent situation[citation needed]. The speech
went as follows:
The Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured
and perhaps worse. It is obvious that the RUC is no longer accepted as an
impartial police force. Neither would the employment of British troops be acceptable nor
would they be likely to restore peaceful conditions, certainly not in the long
term. The Irish
Government have, therefore, requested the British
Government to apply immediately to the United Nations for the urgent
dispatch of a Peace-Keeping Force to the Six Counties of Northern Ireland and
have instructed the Permanent Representative to the United Nations to inform
the Secretary General of this request. We have also asked the British
Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of
Very many people have been injured and some of them seriously. We know that
many of these do not wish to be treated in
Recognising, however, that the re-unification
of the national territory can provide the only permanent solution
for the problem, it is our intention to request the British Government to enter
into early negotiations with the Irish Government to review the present
constitutional position of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.
These measures which I have outlined to you seem to the Government to be
those most immediately and urgently necessary.
All men and women of goodwill will hope and pray that the present
deplorable and distressing situation will not further deteriorate but that it
will soon be ended firstly by the granting of full equality of citizenship to
every man and woman in the Six Counties area regardless of class, creed or
political persuasion and, eventually, by the restoration of the historic unity
of our country.
In this speech
he used forceful language which did not inflame tensions[citation needed].
Many people in the North thought that the government in Ireland would despatch
troops over the border to protect nationalists[citation needed].
However, this course of action, which was urged by a number of ministers in the
Cabinet such as Charles Haughey, Neil Blaney and Kevin
Boland, was dismissed as a non-runner at the very beginning. As the
violence continued the Minister for External Affairs, Patrick
Hillery, met with the British
Foreign Secretary and also went to the United
Nations in a plea to send a peacekeeping
force to the North and to highlight the Irish government's case. However,
little else was achieved from these meetings other than media coverage of the
activities in the North of Ireland. The situation in
Lynch's attitude
towards the
One of the high
points of Lynch's first term as Taoiseach, and possibly one of the most
important events in modern Irish history, was Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community. Lynch
personally steered the application for membership and the acceptance of
membership by a five to one majority in a referendum shows that the vast
majority of the country was behind him.
Lynch's
government was expected to collapse following the Arms Crisis, however it
survived until 1973. Lynch had wanted to call the general election for the end
of 1972, however, events had conspired against him and the date was set for
February, 1973. Lynch's government was defeated by the National Coalition of Fine Gael
and the Labour Party. Liam
Cosgrave was elected Taoiseach and Lynch found himself on the opposition
benches for the first time in sixteen years. Lynch's popularity remained
steadfast, so much so that during his tenure as Leader of the Opposition he was
frequently referred to as "the Real Taoiseach". Lynch had some
success while out of power. He had finally expelled all the elements of the
party which threatened his leadership and the unification of the party. Lynch
was now in complete control. Fianna Fáil began its electoral comeback by securing the election
of its candidate, Erskine H. Childers, in becoming President of Ireland in 1973, defeating the
odds-on favourite, the National Coalition's Tom
O'Higgins.
In 1975 Lynch
allowed Charles Haughey to return
to his Front Bench as Spokesperson on Health. There was much media criticism of
Lynch for this move. In the same year the Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Michael O'Kennedy,
published a Fianna Fáil
policy document calling for a withdrawal of British forces from Northern
Ireland. The document was an echo of Fianna Fáil's republican origins, and although Lynch was not happy
with it, he did not stop it.
Controversy
continued to dog the National Coalition when the President of Ireland, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, resigned in 1976 after being called a
"thundering disgrace" by the Minister for Defence,
Paddy
Donegan. Liam
Cosgrave refused to sack his Minister and the government's popularity took
a downturn. A former Fianna Fáil
cabinet minister and a political ally of Lynch, Patrick Hillery,
was eventually nominated (without election) as Ó Dálaigh's
successor and sixth President of Ireland.
In 1977 the
government, although reasonably unpopular, felt sure of an election victory and
June date for the poll was fixed. The National Coalition's spirits had been
buoyed up by the actions of the Minister for Local Government, James Tully. In what became known as the Tullymander (a pun on the word gerrymander)
he re-drew every constituency in
Early on in his
second term as Taoiseach, Lynch decided that he would not lead Fianna Fáil into another general
election campaign. The date of January 1980 was in his mind as a retirement date, however nothing had been made definite. It was during
this time, due to a combination of a large parliamentary majority and the
search for a new leader, when party discipline began to break down.
In the party's
election manifesto in 1977 Fianna Fáil
promised a whole range of new economic measures. These measures included the
abolition of car tax, rates on houses and a number of other vote-winning
"sweeteners." A new Department of Economic
Planning & Development was set up to kick-start
The year 1978
saw the first open revolt in party discipline. There was an open mutiny by many
backbenchers when the Minister for Finance, George
Colley, attempted to impose a 2% levy on farmers. Colley was forced into a
humiliating climbdown at the behest of the
backbenchers and the authority of the government was shaken. There was similar
tension when a vote on the Family Planning Bill was proposed in the Dáil by the Minister for Health, Charles Haughey. The legislation proposed that only people with a
prescription could be dispensed contraception and was described as "an Irish solution to an Irish
problem". Jim Gibbons, who was a devout Catholic and
had a deep hatred of Haughey failed to turn up and
vote for this important legislation. It was the only time when a TD, let alone
a cabinet minister, was allowed flout the party whip
in Fianna Fáil and damaged
Lynch's authority when he failed to expel the minister from the government and
parliamentary party. As well as this, a group of backbench TDs began to lobby
other TDs in support of Charles Haughey, should a
leadership election arise. This group, known as the "gang of five,"
consisted of Jackie Fahey, Tom McEllistrim, Jnr, Seán Doherty, Mark Killilea and Albert
Reynolds.
Lynch's resignation
1979 proved to
be the year in which Lynch finally realised that his
grip on power had slipped. The first direct elections to the European Parliament took place in June saw the electorate severely punish the ruling Fianna
Fáil party. A five-month postal strike also led to
deep anger amongst people all over the country. On 27 August 1979 the Provisional
IRA assassinated Earl Mountbatten in County Sligo. On the same day the IRA killed 18 British
soldiers at Warrenpoint in County Down.
A radical security review and greater cross-border co-operation were discussed
with the new British Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher. These discussions led Síle de Valera, a backbench TD, to directly challenge
the leadership at a commemoration service.
The visit of Pope
John Paul II to
Lynch remained
on in Dáil Éireann
as a TD until his retirement from politics at the 1981 general election.
Following
Lynch's retirement from politics the offers from various companies flooded in.
He became directors at a number of companies, including Irish
Distillers, Smurfit and Hibernian Insurance. He also
embarked on a good deal of foreign travel. He was conferred with the freedom of
his own native Cork city. He continued to speak on political issues,
particularly in favour of Desmond
O'Malley at the time of his expulsion from Fianna
Fáil. Lynch also declined to accept nominations to
become President of Ireland, a position he had little
interest in. In 1992 he suffered a severe health set back, and in 1993 suffered
a stroke in which he nearly lost his sight. Following this he withdrew from
public life, preferring to remain at his home with his wife Máirín
where he continued to be dogged by ill-health.
He continued to
be honoured by, among others, the Gaelic Athletic Association and various
other organisations. In 1999 the Jack
Lynch Tunnel under the river Lee was named by Cork
Corporation in his honour. A plaque was also
erected at his birthplace in Shandon. Lynch died in the
Jack Lynch has
been described as "the most popular Irish politician since Daniel
O'Connell." This praise did not come from Lynch's allies or even his
own party, but from the former leader of Fine Gael, Liam
Cosgrave. As a sportsman Lynch earned a reputation for a decency and fair
play, characteristics he brought to political life. It was for this that the
man known as "the Real Taoiseach" or "the Reluctant
Taoiseach", with his ever present pipe and the soft Cork lilt in his voice
will be remembered.
Copyright Wikipedia
Academic year 2008/2009
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