Peter Barry

Peter Barry ( Irish Peadar de Barra ; born August 10, 1928 in Cork , County Cork , † August 26, 2016 ibid) was an Irish politician ( Fine Gael ).

Family and career

The son of the businessman and Dáil-Éireann MP Anthony Barry became a major shareholder in the family company Barry's Tea after attending school .

Political career

Member of Parliament from 1969 to 1997

Barry began his political career in 1969 with the election to the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament. There he represented the constituency of Cork for Fine Gael until 1997. In June 1970 he was elected Lord Mayor ("Lord Mayor") of Cork City and held this office until June 1971. When he retired from political life in 1997, his daughter Deirdre Clune was elected to succeed him in the House of Commons.

minister

After the Fine Gael electoral victory, Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave appointed him Minister of Transport and Energy on March 14, 1973. He was then Minister of Education from 1976 to 1977.

After the electoral defeat of Fine Gael against the longstanding ruling party Fianna Fáil in 1977, Barry became deputy chairman of Fine Gael Garret FitzGerald in 1979 . When he first became Taoiseach on June 30, 1981, Barry took over the Ministry of the Environment until March 9, 1982.

After the renewed election victory of Fine Gael he was from December 14, 1982 to March 10, 1987 Irish Foreign Minister in the coalition government between the Fine Gael under FitzGerald and the Irish Labor Party ("Irish Labor Party "). In this function he was also the “Foreign Minister” of the European Communities in the second half of 1984 . On November 15, 1985, he was one of the key players in the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement , which gave the Republic of Ireland some say in the administration of Northern Ireland but recognized Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. Under this agreement he was also the first chairman of the joint Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. When the Irish Labor Party left the government coalition on January 20, 1987, Barry was still Tánaiste ("Deputy Prime Minister") for just under two months .

After FitzGerald's resignation as chairman of Fine Gael, Barry ran alongside John Bruton unsuccessfully against Alan Dukes for the office of party chairman.

Biographical sources and background information

• Christopher Took, Seán Donnelly: Peter Barry constituency results from 1969 to 1997 on ElectionsIreland.org.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Barry: Former Irish deputy prime minister dies . bbc.com , August 26, 2016, accessed August 26, 2016.