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Liam Cosgrave
File:Cosgrave2.jpg
Taoiseach
In office 14 March 1973 – 5 July 1977
President	Éamon de Valera Erskine H. Childers Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh Patrick Hillery
Tánaiste	Brendan Corish
Preceded by	Jack Lynch
Succeeded by	Jack Lynch
Minister for External Affairs
In office 2 June 1954 – 20 March 1957
Preceded by	Frank Aiken
Succeeded by	Frank Aiken
Personal details
Born	(1920-04-13) 13 April 1920 Dublin, Ireland
Political party	Fine Gael

Liam Cosgrave (Irish name: 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.

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 developed a love of traditional music whilst a student and he maintained a lifelong fascination with the Sean Nos singing tradition of Connamara. 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 Eireann in the 1943 general election and was elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin County at the age of 23, sitting in the 12th 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. 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.

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.

File:Liamcosgrave.jpg

Liam Cosgrave's Election Poster

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.

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). 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.

Left unguided, the inexperienced Ó Dálaigh's relationship with the National Coalition deteriorated. When, in the aftermath of the assassination of the British Ambassador to Ireland, Sir Christopher Ewart Biggs, the President referred a number of key anti-terrorist Bills to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality (in accordance with his constitutional right as President), Paddy Donegan, an outspoken minister with a reputation for saying the wrong thing and who it turned out had a drink problem and had taken some drink that day, lashed the President as a "thundering disgrace" in a speech to senior army officers. (Some reports in later books claimed that the term used was "thundering bollocks and fucking disgrace", a version the President told a dinner party subsequently which he evidently believed was the correct one. However, the only journalist who was present at Donegan's speech insisted that the term Donegan used was "thundering disgrace").

Donegan offered his resignation on two occasions, as well as sending a fulsome apology to the President. However, in the biggest misjudgment of his career, Cosgrave twice refused the resignation, and in so doing, effectively besmirched the reputation of the President. The President, not so much angered by the outburst as the further comment, that the "army must stand behind the state", which the President interpreted as being a suggestion that he, the Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, didn't stand behind the state, an astonishing claim to make in front of Irish Army officers who had been commissioned by the President of Ireland.

When Cosgrave failed to fire Donnegan, Ó Dálaigh resigned the presidency. He was replaced by the Fianna Fáil candidate, Patrick Hillery. The whole affair, and the National Coalition's treatment of an honourable if politically naïve man, severely damaged the government's reputation and tarnished Cosgrave's place in history.

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 piece 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, as did its tough austerity measures (Finance Minister Richie Ryan was also 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. 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. 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 2008, Cosgrave is both the oldest and earliest living former Taoiseach. At 88 years, he is the second longest lived Taoiseach, behind only Éamon de Valera. 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

• Families in the Oireachtas

External links

• Liam Cosgrave's electoral history (ElectionsIreland.org)