This article, by Eilis O'Hanlon, appeared originally in the Irish Independent HERE
Dev, Charlie, Bertie and beyond: the legacies of the 16 men who have led Ireland
From the taoiseach ‘well-known for his partiality for whiskey’ to the leader prone to digression during 14-hour Cabinet meetings, Iain Dale’s absorbing book provides a fascinating insight into those who have held the highest office
The Taoiseach: A Century of Political Leadership, edited by Iain Dale
Clockwise from top left: Simon Harris, Charlie Haughey, Éamon de Valera, Micheál Martin, Bertie Ahern, Jack Lynch and Garret FitzGerald
Broad appeal: Iain Dale, editor of ‘The Taoiseach’
The Taoiseach: A Century of Political Leadership, edited by Iain Dale
Clockwise from top left: Simon Harris, Charlie Haughey, Éamon de Valera, Micheál Martin, Bertie Ahern, Jack Lynch and Garret FitzGerald
Finding the right Christmas present for men of a certain age can be a nightmare. They have enough socks at this stage to last three lifetimes. That’s why so many sports biographies come out in autumn. It’s the perfect last-minute buy for Himself.
For the dedicated newshound in your life, broadcaster and author Iain Dale has ridden to the rescue with his new book, The Taoiseach, which brings together a who’s who of Irish academics and journalists, each of whom contributes a chapter on the men who have led Ireland since the first, WT Cosgrave, though he was known back then by the grand title president of the executive council of the Irish Free State.
The first person to be called taoiseach was Éamon de Valera. The difficult job of summing him up has been given to David McCullagh, Claire Byrne’s replacement on radio and author of a two-volume biography of the long fellow.
He notes that Dev, despite having a reputation for being “unchanging in his views”, was a far more flexible and pragmatic politician than is generally acknowledged nowadays.
Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University and himself the author of the definitive biography of Charles Haughey, takes on the equally Herculean task of condensing the rollercoaster life of the Big Fella into a mere 27 pages, and does so with his usual aplomb, finding again a more complex character than the caricature of “corruption, venality and profligacy” with which his name is now associated.
As health minister, the diet-conscious Micheál Martin apparently banned biscuits from Cabinet meetings
Irish Examiner special correspondent Mick Clifford offers an admirably even-handed portrait of Bertie Ahern, concluding that whilst this unpretentious and likeable man with a ferocious work ethic is “entitled to all the plaudits he has received for his role” in getting the Belfast Agreement across the line, “at no point did he elucidate any kind of vision for the country”.
In truth, Ahern was not in thrall to any ideology. He cut taxes, but public spending was also high during his tenure, and he would have been as happy in government after 1997 with Labour as the Progressive Democrats. Ahern basically rode the Celtic Tiger, whilst having little control over the direction that crazy beast went; but whilst he has been dogged by his “bizarre” explanations for the dig outs provided by friends when he fell into financial difficulties, the man himself did not have an ostentatious or extravagant lifestyle – far from it.
Stephen Collins of the Irish Times likewise finds Jack Lynch to be “a hugely popular but somewhat indecisive taoiseach who didn’t leave a lasting impression on the country”.
That seems a tad ungenerous, considering the list of achievements over which Lynch presided, including overseeing negotiations to join the EEC; steering Ireland away from the brink after Bloody Sunday; winning the referendum to delete the special place for the Catholic Church in the Constitution; and later bringing the country into the European monetary system.
Most taoisigh would settle for such a CV, not to mention those six All-Ireland medals in a row in different codes, an achievement which has never been equalled. Some might say that’s far more impressive than being a mere taoiseach.
Lynch was also the one who gave Fianna Fáil its great victory in 1977 – the last time any party won an overall Dáil majority, with 84 out of 148 seats. It soon went pear-shaped, but things often do in government. His “well-known partiality for whiskey” can be forgiven for that alone.
After he stepped down, Lynch did not attend any public event for the rest of his life. Many other taoisigh must surely wish that their predecessors had the decency to do the same.
One of the most readable chapters is Virgin Media political correspondent Gavan Reilly’s on current taoiseach Micheál Martin.
As health minister, the diet-conscious Martin apparently banned biscuits from Cabinet meetings, and watched the 2020 Munster football final (in which his son played in goal for Cork) whilst eating a chickpea salad in his office.
It was written too late to take account of his disastrous promotion of Jim Gavin for president, but observes how Fianna Fáil became a one-man band under his leadership, and how “critics inside his party believe he treats the positions of other members as an afterthought”.
Reilly notes too how Martin’s way of answering questions gradually changed as leader, with “subclauses… inserted inside subclauses, so that some sentences were never actually completed, abandoned in favour of a safer thing to state”.
Broad appeal: Iain Dale, editor of ‘The Taoiseach’
Pat Leahy, Irish Times political editor, gets the much more thankless task of finding something interesting to say about Simon Harris. It’s worth reading if only to be reminded how, as a young TD, Harris was allegedly referred to in Fine Gael as the “white Obama”. What larks.
One of the best chapters, on Fine Gael’s grand old man Garret FitzGerald, is written by Eoin O’Malley, associate professor of political science at DCU and author of Charlie vs Garrett: The Rivalry That Shaped Modern Ireland.
O’Malley describes how this brilliant man, “whose mind fizzed with ideas on how to modernise Ireland”, ended up being trapped in a project to “restrain” his nemesis, Charlie Haughey, as well as frustrating his colleagues with “digressions and theoretical discussions not directly relevant to the discussion at hand”.
“Meetings could last up to 14 hours as every detail was discussed,” O’Malley writes. Labour leader Michael O’Leary, “had a low boredom threshold and would go missing, even during Cabinet meetings”. He has all our sympathy.
At the same time, it’s worth considering whether there are many politicians in this unimaginatively managerial age who have spent 14 hours thinking about political ideas in their entire lives, never mind at one sitting.
You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, as the great Joni Mitchell once observed.
O’Malley also provides a helpful introductory overview of how the office of taoiseach has evolved over time, from an all-powerful “chief” of a single dominant party to a role closer to that of chairman of the board, and one which, now the concept of rotating taoisigh has been normalised, comes with a “co-captain” in coalition with a power base of their own, leading to a corresponding “dilution of the authority”.
The Taoiseach is a follow up to a previous, award-winning book edited by Iain Dale, The Prime Ministers, which similarly profiled each of the men and women who had, up until publication, served in 10 Downing Street.
Incredibly, he reveals that he initially could not get any interest from an Irish publisher. He turned it into a podcast series instead, which in turn piqued the interest of Swift Press, an independent UK publisher which brought out Woody Allen’s first novel earlier this year.
Dale is honest enough to admit that he “barely knew anything” about some of the taoisigh before starting this project; but in truth, many people in Ireland don’t either, so a little of the same humility would not go amiss. I knew shamefully little about a few of them too, and appreciated the chance to fill in the gaps.
The estimable Dale, a master communicator in his own right, says that he wanted the book to appeal to the general reader, and the contributors duly obliged. He also says that “each author was encouraged to be opinionated”.
I would arguably have liked a few of the writers to embrace that side of the proposal a bit more enthusiastically. There’s still a fair bit of “on the one hand, on the other hand” going on.
That minor quibble aside – and it is a very minor one, because I thoroughly enjoyed all the contributions in their different ways – The Taoiseach cannot be recommended highly enough.
It’s one of those books that you can either read chronologically from front to back cover, or dip in and out of at leisure. It should keep many a dad happily occupied over Christmas.
You can order a signed copy of the book HERE.