Correspondents' Correspondence A President Resigns
SPINNER, THOMAS J. Jr.
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS ^?,v9WSB?OMMUN|CATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Tension in Ireland Burlington—The resignation of...
...The outward calm that marks the current political scene, though, is deceptive...
...He termed it "a thundering disgTace...
...Chosen directly by the entire nation, the President of Ireland has special authority to defend the constitutional rights of the people...
...Since 1927, Ireland's politics and parliament have been largely dominated by the Fianna Fail, the party of Eamon de Valera—the only senior commander from the Easter Rising of 1916 not to be executed, an opponent of the Treaty of 1921 that partitioned the country, a longtime Prime Minister (1932-48, 5154, 57-59), the principal molder of the Irish Constitution of 1937, and President from 1959-73...
...still, it is more than merely a symbol of national unity...
...Each man's heritage reflects 20th-century Irish history: Childers' father, a supporter of de Valera during the Irish Civil War, was executed by the protreaty government in 1922...
...Fine Gael, the major conservative party and heir to the supporters of the Treaty of 1921, joined forces with the moderately Leftist Labor party and toppled Jack Lynch, who had become Prime Minister in 1966...
...After an acrimonious campaign, the Fianna Fail candidate emerged victorious with 52 per cent of the vote...
...O'Daly, of course, had been carrying out the proper function of his office in requesting a Court decision...
...Tension in Ireland Burlington—The resignation of President Carroll O'Daly (Cearb-hall O'Dalaigh) last October 22 could have produced the most profound crisis in the history of the Irish Republic since those dark bitter days between 1916-23, when the English were clubbed to a standstill and the Irish revolutionary front went on to devour itself...
...It seemed certain that a fight for the Presidency would ensue...
...The result was passage of the Emergency Powers Act...
...A bad defeat might have forced an early vote and placed a precarious majority into jeopardy...
...Thomas J. Spinner Jr...
...The main source of the Fianna Fail's strength has always been its position at the absolute center of the political spectrum: Unnatural alliances of Left and Right have traditionally been the single means of forcing it from power...
...The Supreme Court ruled that the Aot was constitutional, but also stipulated certain procedures that had to be followed to safeguard the rights of those placed in custody...
...they extend deep into the Irish past and they cannot be put off for long...
...It didn't because Prime Minister Liam Cos-grave's governing coalition decided to postpone the confrontation by accepting the opposition party's nominee for the office...
...Fianna Fail, in turn, shifted away from the controversial name of de Valera and selected a former doctor, Patrick Hillery, who had also been a foreign minister and, most recently, Ireland's delegate to the European Common Market Commission in Brussels...
...The next year, however, President Childers died...
...Eight years later he was named Chief Justice, and in 1973 he moved on to the Court of Justice of the European Community...
...Lurking just beneath the surface is the potentially explosive issue of the eventual reunification of Ireland...
...O'Daly had been active with the Fianna Fail, but his political career came to an end when he was appointed to the Irish Supreme Court in 1953...
...With parliamentary elections due at the latest by the spring of 1978, the coalition decided not to oppose its rival's choice...
...One of those unions took place in 1973...
...In 1973, Fine Gael turned again to Thomas F. O'Higgins, the candidate who had come so close to an upset win in 1966...
...O'Daly promptly resigned...
...Yet Minister of Defense Patrick Donegan, a man best known to the Irish for having chased gypsies from his estate with a shotgun, was not pleased with the delay caused by the President's action...
...Fianna Fail chose a Protestant, Erskine Childers...
...On November 26, Hillery became Ireland's fifth President...
...More immediately, many on the Left are dissatisfied with what they feel have been inexcusable compromises on the part of the Labor party...
...The Fine Gael-Labor coalition was tempted to contest the post, especially when rumors sprang up that Eamon de Valera's son might be the Fianna Fail candidate...
...Then it was remembered that the Fianna Fail had never lost a Presidential race...
...Rather than risk another bitter election, the three major parties agreed that Carroll O'Daly should fill out his term...
...Liam Cosgrave then assumed the office his father had held from 1922-32...
...Shortly after O'Daly's accession, questions involving the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the conflict in Ulster—always sensitive in the Republic of Ireland—took on new urgency...
...As for the Presidency, de Valera's Constitution gives it less power than the office of Prime Minister...
...And this, plus the fact that the profound social problems which have always haunted Ireland remain unsolved, suggest more difficult times ahead than the reasonable resolution of the Presidential question might lead one to believe...
...O'Higgins' uncle, Kevin O'Higgins, was the most powerful member of William Cosgrave's protreaty administration when, in 1927, at the age of 35, he was assassinated on his way to Mass...
...But there are strong undercurrents of conflict in Dublin...
...Until 1973, only three men had held the office: Douglas Hyde, a distinguished Protestant scholar...
...Fianna Fail stalwart Sean T. O'Kel-ly...
...He was particularly bothered by a provision that gave the police authority to hold suspects for seven days before bringing charges...
...and de Valera, who won a fairly substantial victory in 1959 but barely squeaked by seven years later, with 50.5 per cent of the vote and a popular majority of just 10,000...
...Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have denounced the IRA, in its official as well as provisional form, but Fine Gael has taken the harder line...
...Now continued violence in Ulster, Britain and the Irish Republic itself (especially the murder of the British ambassador), persuaded the Cosgrave regime to introduce tough new anti-terrorist legislation...
...No doubt influenced by the European Court of Human Rights' denunciation of British treatment of detainees in Northern Ireland, O'Daly expressed grave reservations about the bill and refused to sign it until the Supreme Court ruled on its constitutionality...
Vol. 60 • January 1977 • No. 2
