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'Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh' (12 February 1911 – 21 March 1978, ) served as fifth President of Ireland, from 1974 to 1976. He resigned in 1976 after a clash with the government. He also had a notable legal career, including serving as Chief Justice of Ireland.
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was born in Dublin in 1911.

Contents

Career

President of Ireland

Death and assessment

Notes

External links

Career

A graduate of University College Dublin Ó Dálaigh was a committed Fianna Fáil supporter who served on the party's National Executive in the 1930s, he became Ireland's youngest Attorney-General in 1946 under Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, serving until 1948. Unsuccessful in Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann elections in 1948 and 1951, he was re-appointed as Attorney-General in 1951 and in 1953 he was appointed as the youngest member of the Supreme Court by his mentor, de Valera. Less than a decade later, he became Ireland's youngest Chief Justice, when selected by then Taoiseach, Seán Lemass.
Ó Dálaigh and Mr. Justice Brian Walsh adopted a more interventionist approach to interpreting the constitution, in a manner that was occurring in the United States but previously not used in more cautious Irish law interpretation. In 1972, Taoiseach Jack Lynch suggested to the opposition parties that they agree to nominate Ó Dálaigh to become president of Ireland when President de Valera's last term ended in June of the following year. However Fine Gael, which was confident that its prospective candidate, Tom O'Higgins, would win the 1973 presidential election (he had almost defeated de Valera in 1966) turned down the offer. Fianna Fáil's Erskine H. Childers went on to win the presidential election, however.
When Ireland joined the European Economic Community, Jack Lynch appointed Ó Dálaigh as Ireland's judge on the European Court of Justice. When President Childers died suddenly in 1974, all parties agreed to nominate Ó Dálaigh for the post, earlier plans to nominate the late president's widow, Rita, having failed over a mix-up.

President of Ireland

Ó Dálaigh proved to be a mixed success as president. While popular with Irish language enthusiasts and artists he had a strained relationship with the Coalition Government. Some have alleged that he exhibited political naïveté at a number of press briefings (for example, giving a press briefing to international journalists in the Irish language and deciding on one state visit to speak every major European language but English).
His decision in 1976 to use his powers to refer a series of tough state security Bills to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality caused consternation to the Fine Gael-Labour National Coalition, especially as the laws had resulted from the murder of the British Ambassador to Ireland, Sir Christopher Ewart-Biggs, a short time earlier, by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Ó Dálaigh then announced that he would sign the bill at midnight of the 15th of October, which he made public. There was a historical precedent for the referral of this bill. Douglas Hyde referred the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act of 1939, introduced by Gerald Boland, to the Supreme Court. At this time World War II had broken out in Europe but this did not result in a political schism. Jim Duffy claims that, as a result of this, the PIRA arranged an attack in Mountmellick which resulted in the killing of Garda Clerkin.^[1] Others would dispute that the PIRA would have held the President's opinion in such high regard as their members at the time did not recognise the State of which Ó Dálaigh was then the Head.
Ó Dálaigh's actions were seen by government ministers to have contributed to the killing of this Garda and greatly incensed them. The following day, following a minor car accident, and after attending Clerkin's removal, Paddy Donegan, a controversial and outspoken Minister for Defence, described the incident as a "thundering disgrace", it was believed at the time that this remark was about the president personally but recent documents indicate it was rather about the actions of the president in referring the bill.^[2] Donegan, a known alcoholic, was likely under the influence of alcohol at the time. That Donegan chose an occasion of addressing members of the Irish Defence Forces, whose barracks he was attending solely to open a new cookhouse, to lambast the Head of the Defence Forces created a major political incident. Donegan had also received his seal of office from the President which meant that the incident questioned constitutional propriety.
The apologetic Donegan immediately offered his resignation, an offer he repeated subsequently, however this was not sufficient for the President who some have since alleged was close to a mental breakdown.^[1] But Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave refused the offers. Cosgrave's failure to meet the President to personally apologise, following on two years in which he had failed to meet his constitutional obligation to regularly brief the President, and the manner in which his government treated the President, proved the last straw for President Ó Dálaigh. He became the first Irish president to resign. This incident contributed to the Government's perception as arrogant and out of touch with public opinion and contributed, in part, to their defeat in the 1977 general election.^[4]
The opposition proposed outgoing EEC Commissioner Patrick Hillery for the presidency. Hillery served two unchallenged terms of office before retiring at the end of his second term in 1990.
Private papers released recently have also shown that Ó Dálaigh considered the relationship between the President (as Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces) and the Minister for Defence had been "irrevocably broken" by the comments of the Minister to the Chief of Staff and other high ranking officers, and that this, coupled with no public apology being made, resulted in his resignation.^[5]

Death and assessment

Ó Dálaigh died in 1978, less than two years after resigning the presidency. He is buried in Sneem, County Kerry.
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was a radical maverick, and he challenged convention as Attorney-General, Chief Justice and President with innovative ideas. His downside was his almost complete political naïveté. As Chief Justice, he got into rows about Chairman Mao and Disney's stage-Irish film, ''Darby O'Gill and the Little People'', over which he mounted a public picket with his close friend, the actor Cyril Cusack. As President, he puzzled ordinary people with his complicated, legal-sounding speeches, his tendency to jump between languages (Irish to French to English, back to Irish with some Latin terms thrown in). Historians differ on whether to regard Ó Dálaigh's presidency as a disaster, or a triumph destroyed by his enemies. He was undoubtedly the presidency's most intellectually brilliant office-holder, at least until the election of Mary Robinson fourteen years later. He was also undoubtedly politically naïve, something that got him into severe difficulties at key moments. In a different context, those problems could have been overcome, but if Ó Dálaigh was the most politically naïve president, then the Government he worked with was notable for its own inability to offer him the necessary guidance to overcome those problems, with an honourable and decent taoiseach who nevertheless was, as Ó Dálaigh himself observed, taciturn in the extreme and did not support him when Donegan attacked him.

Notes

1. "Naivete blighted Ó Dálaigh's tenure" by Jim Duffy in the Irish Times, Tuesday, October 24, 2006
2. Perhaps inevitably, it is widely believed that the actual language used was stronger. Ó Dálaigh believed it was 'thundering bollocks and fucking disgrace', as he told guests at a dinner party subsequently. His own anger was partly due to the nature of what he believed the comments ''really'' were. However, the only journalist present on the occasion - a correspondent with the local ''Westmeath Examiner'' newspaper, Don Lavery - insists that the words used were "thundering disgrace" and nothing else (RTE This Week, October 22, 2006) .
3. "Naivete blighted Ó Dálaigh's tenure" by Jim Duffy in the Irish Times, Tuesday, October 24, 2006
4. [Gene Kerrigan and Patrick Brennan (1999) This Great Little Nation: The A to Z of Irish Scandals and Controversies]
5. Sunday Independent, October 29th, 2006 - The many resignations of O Dalaigh

External links

★ Official Site