John A. Costello

John A. Costello

John Aloysius Costello ( Irish : Seán Alabhaois Mac Coisdealbha ; born June 20, 1891 in Dublin , † January 5, 1976 ibid) was an Irish politician of the Cumann na nGaedheal and their successor, the Fine Gael . Costello was Taoiseach ( Prime Minister ) of the Republic of Ireland from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957 .

Early life

Costello finished his studies of history, literature, law and linguistics at University College Dublin in 1914 , whereupon he was admitted to the bar. In 1922 he was first assistant in the Legal Bureau of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and later in the same year assistant to the first Attorney General (Attorney General) of the Free State. Costello held this post under his successor until 1926, when he was appointed Attorney General himself. In 1932 he gave up the office to run for the lower house of the Irish Parliament , the Dáil Éireann , to which he should belong for several decades after his election in 1933 as a representative of various Dublin constituencies.

First term

Until the post-war election in 1948, Costello was more of a backbencher. However, the election brought a large coalition government led by the Fine Gail to power, whose chairman Richard Mulcahy was rejected as head of government by some of the smaller coalition partners because of his involvement in the Irish Civil War . Costello became Taoiseach as a compromise candidate.

During his first reign, the Irish state declared itself a republic and withdrew from the Commonwealth , thus completing the development towards Irish independence. Ireland also joined the Council of Europe and the OECD predecessor Organization for European Economic Co-operation . In 1950, the government came under pressure due to rising inflation and the resignation of some parliamentarians from the coalition and announced early elections for June 1951 , which led to the removal and replacement by the Fianna Fáil .

After the 1951 election, Costello led his party in the Irish Parliament, but did not become party leader.

Second term

In 1954 the Fine Gael-led coalition won a majority, and Costello became prime minister for the second time. The greatest success of this term of office was joining the United Nations in 1955, but it did not succeed in solving Ireland's considerable economic problems, and a coalition dispute over the course of action against the IRA , in which Costello took a hard line, led again after three years in 1957 to early elections won by Fianna Fail.

Late life

Costello remained a member of parliament for one legislative period until 1961, but after 1959 only as a backbencher. After retiring from politics, he worked as a lawyer in Dublin until shortly before his death in 1976.

Costello was married and had five children. One of his sons, Declan Costello , was, like his father, a Attorney General and a longtime Member of the Irish Parliament.

Web links

• Biography on the side of the archives of University College Dublin ( English )
• Newspaper article about John A. Costello in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/John_A._Costello.html