by Gary Murphy
Vote Fine Gael for a Fianna Fáil Government
The belief in the US embassy that Ryan was de Valera’s chosen successor had some basis in reality in that a number of commentators were of the view that Ryan could emerge as a compromise candidate between Lemass and Frank Aiken, who did not come into the equation at all so far as the US embassy was concerned. While it is unlikely that any US official had much regard for Aiken’s political nous given his stance on nuclear issues at the UN, his omission from embassy speculation is nonetheless surprising. The British embassy, by contrast, was convinced up to the end of 1958 that Ryan could emerge as a compromise candidate between Lemass and Aiken.47
MacEntee, as a result of his move to Health after the election of 1957, was never really a serious candidate to replace de Valera. Jack Lynch – appointed Minister for Education at thirty-nine, and the youngest member of the 1957 Fianna Fáil administration – had an interesting take on MacEntee:
Seán Lemass was obviously always regarded as Dev’s immediate successor. Seán Lemass, having first become in the 1932 Fianna Fáil Government Minister for Industry and Commerce, showed such a bent for Industry and Commerce, showed such a capacity in economics generally, that I think Seán Lemass would have stayed there as long as he liked and did in fact until the war came and he was appointed Minister for Supplies and I think Seán MacEntee then became Minister for Industry and Commerce for a short period of time. But for that reason since Seán MacEntee obviously had no ambition, he may have had ambition but he saw no possibility, as long as Seán Lemass was there, being a younger man, of becoming the Deputy Taoiseach or Tanaiste as he [Lemass] ultimately became. Therefore he [MacEntee] was a man of such ability that Dev used him deliberately … used him as a utility man so to speak in the Cabinet, but as I said it was first because of the fact that Lemass concentrated on the economic side that MacEntee had no objection in the event of being moved from what you might call a senior ministry in Finance to a less senior ministry in Health or Local Government so they were [the] two factors there combining in that part of Seán MacEntee’s official life. I said earlier that Seán MacEntee was a man of great commitment and would fight for the cause in which he believed. He was a man of great commitment, he gave me great assistance; irrespective of whether he had a regard for me or not he had a regard for the leadership of Fianna Fáil. He supported that leadership in a most effective manner. He was a most potent factor in establishing the authority of the leader and therefore in maintaining the integrity of the party in every sense of the word integrity. This is something I will always remember Seán MacEntee for.48
There is a problem with Lynch’s analysis given that MacEntee clearly subscribed to orthodox conservatism while at the helm of financial policy; in that context, it is very difficult to see how it could be a case of MacEntee willingly moving aside to leave Lemass control economic policy. MacEntee’s commitment to what he was doing was far too strong for him to simply give way. While he may have ultimately lost the battle, it was one that he had fought out of a belief that the stability of the state – that he himself had done so much to establish – would be maintained by a conservative economic policy. For Fianna Fáil – and Lemass in particular – the trouble with this was that it was costing the party votes. In the fluid and politically unstable 1950s – with rumours of national Governments flying around the political elites – this was a situation Lemass could not countenance. He commenced weekly off-the-record briefing sessions with the political correspondents of the national newspapers – with de Valera’s retirement among the subjects that frequently came up for mention – and was a regular source of leaks.
By August, when La Fréniere was writing his memorandum, Lemass had managed to sideline MacEntee where Government economic policy was concerned. By this stage, Lemass was in the process of reorienting relations with the various interest groups, and was fashioning a more active economic policy that eventually would have interdependence with Europe at its core. On the leadership front, an undated reference in the MacEntee papers – scribbled on his copy of Brian Farrell’s biography of Lemass – refers in passing to ‘Lemass’ tirade to Margaret against Dev’. The personal closeness of the two political protagonists – as John Horgan points out in his biography of Lemass – is underlined by the fact that Margaret MacEntee could readily share this confidence with her husband without any feeling of disloyalty, and (though Horgan does not point this out) that Lemass could share it with Margaret MacEntee in the first place.49
While Lemass had his critics in the party – with many of the old guard often using Aiken as a means of access to de Valera in ways that bypassed the Government – Lemass was undoubtedly popular, and offered the best avenue for political success in the party. De Valera eventually announced his decision to retire as Taoiseach and as president of Fianna Fáil at a party meeting on 15 January 1959. It would take six more months for him to finally resign. When the time came for the election of his successor by the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, Lemass was nominated by his old rival, MacEntee, and after much tumultuous cheering was seconded by Aiken. Bar one or two discordant backbench voices, his election was greeted with wide acclaim by the parliamentary party. The rumours from the British embassy in particular that he would face significant opposition failed to materialise.50There seems to be no other evidence for any plotting by Lemass, MacEntee and O’Kelly in attempting to form a national Government. The British, for instance – while conscious of the approach by Fine Gael – were not aware of any attempt by senior figures in Fianna Fáil to move towards the formation of a national Government. For Fianna Fáil, the period from 1948 to 1957 was indeed a difficult one, and a belief remained amongst senior party members, including MacEntee, that without de Valera at the helm, the party would suffer electorally. There can be little doubt that de Valera had any stomach for the abandonment of protectionism and self-sufficiency. By the time Fianna Fáil won the 1957 election, he was remote from much of the debate within the party. Yet he did recognise that the policies of economic retrenchment had resulted in defeat for his party twice in the previous nine years. MacEntee’s attempts in the 1950s to stabilise the state economically through a conservative financial policy had been repudiated by, firstly, the electorate, and, secondly, de Valera. The latter rejection must have been a tough blow to take, especially as Lemass went on to reorient economic policy in a more statist fashion. Nevertheless, all we know of Lemass, MacEntee and others in Fianna Fáil who had committed themselves to the service of the state suggests that no matter how severe the economic crisis, a national Government was not an alternative they were willing to embrace. In that context, it is perhaps fitting to end with the words of Lemass himself, for whom it was nothing but a ‘scheme designed to give people the idea that they could vote Fine Gael, and almost by proxy get a Fianna Fáil led Government’.51
1 The Irish Times, 24 Jan. 2009.
2 The Irish Times, 25 May 1944.
3 See Puirséil, ‘Political and party competition’ p. 14; Fianna Fáil, The Story of Fianna Fáil: First Phase (Dublin, 1960).
4 Puirséil, ‘Political and party competition’, p. 14. Farrell, Seán Lemass, p. 84; Horgan, Lemass, p. 144; Michael B. Yeats, Cast A Cold Eye. Memories of a Poet’s Son and Politician (Dublin, 1998), p. 49.
5 Lord Longford and Thomas P. O’Neill, Eamon de Valera (London, 1970), p. 439. See also Farrell, Seán Lemass, p. 85. Farrell’s evidence is based on an interview with Lemass.
6 See Farrell, Seán Lemass, p. 53.
7 UCDA, MacEntee papers, P67/338(5), speech at Rathmines, nd, but by context mid-May 1954.
8 NAI, DT, S.13240, MacBride to de Valera, 23 May 1954.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., See also Elizabeth Keane, Seán MacBride: A Life (Dublin, 2007), p. 210; Kevin Rafter, The Clann: The Story of Clann na Poblachta (Cork, 1996), p. 165.
12 UCDA, de Valera papers, P150/3063, Kavanagh to de Valera, 20 May 1954.
13 Ibid., de Valera to Kav
anagh, 28 May 1954.
14 Ibid., Slattery to de Valera, 20 May 1954.
15 Ibid., Humphries to de Valera, 20 May 1954.
16 Ibid., de Valera to Humphries, 28 May 1954.
17 Ibid., McCauley to de Valera, 25 May 1954.
18 Ibid., McCauley to de Valera, 1 June 1954.
19 Bew and Patterson, Seán Lemass and the Making of Modern Ireland, p. 76.
20 The Irish Times, 25 July 1953.
21 The Leader, 12 Apr. 1952.
22 NARA, record group 59, box 3168, 740A/00/2–1857, Dublin embassy to State Department, 18 Feb. 1957.
23 UCDA, Fine Gael papers, P39/GE62, Alex Bolster to Richard Mulcahy, nd, but by context early Feb. 1957.
24 Fine Gael papers, ‘Ireland 1957 – A new deal: Task for national Government’.
25 UCDA, MacEntee papers P67/815(4). I am grateful to MacEntee’s biographer, Dr Tom Feeney, for discussing this issue with me.
26 Interview of John F. McCarthy with Seán Lemass, 14 Aug. 1969, copy in possession of the author.
27 Mackenzie King diaries, 9 Sept. 1948, www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/king/index-e.html
28 Irish Independent, 24 May 1951.
29 Ibid., 26 May 1951.
30 Ibid., 6 June 1951.
31 Ibid., 17 May 1954.
32 Ibid., editorials, 17 May 1954, 27 Feb. 1957, 4 Mar. 1957.
33 Ibid., 8 Mar. 1957.
34 Ibid., 2 Sept. 1961.
35 I am grateful to my former DCU colleague, Professor John Horgan, for discussing this issue with me.
36 Irish Independent, 3 Oct. 1961.
37 Ibid., 7 Oct. 1961.
38 The Irish Times, 8 Mar 1957. See also Mark O’Brien, The Irish Times: A History (Dublin, 2008), p. 154; I am grateful to Dr O’Brien for discussing this issue with me.
39 UCDA, de Valera papers, P150/3063, de Valera speech in Mallow, 20 Feb. 1957.
40 National Archives, London, DO 35/5195, Clutterbuck to Lord Home, 23 Mar. 1957.
41 NARA, record group 59, box 3168, 740A/00/8–857, Dublin embassy to State Department, 8 Aug. 1957.
42 Farrell, Lemass, p. 95.
43 Ibid.
44 Lee, Ireland 1912–1985, p. 341.
45 See for example Fianna Fáil parliamentary-party minutes, FF441/A, 26 Feb., 15 Apr., 26 May 1948.
46 Feeney, Seán MacEntee, p. 201.
47 National Archives, London, 35/790, G. Kimber, Dublin, to G.W. Chadwick, Commonwealth Relations Office, 3 Dec. 1958.
48 Lynch to John Skehan, quoted in the RTÉ documentary, Any Other Business, Jan. 1999.
49 Horgan, Seán Lemass, p. 180.
50 Ibid., p. 186; O’Sullivan, Seán Lemass, p. 146.
51 John F. McCarthy interview with Seán Lemass, 14 Aug. 1969.
5. Owners, Workers and Farmers: The Interest-group Experience
Protectionism – which continued to operate after the war – was reinforced during the 1950s. The crisis in the Irish economy during that decade lay not so much within industry as within agriculture; due to the importance of agriculture for the economy as a whole, however, the crisis affected industry to much the same degree. Industrial employment continued to increase, though at a slower rate than before. Unlike the 1930s, it proved impossible for protected industry to provide enough employment for those leaving the land and for those entering the labour market for the first time. One consequence of this was an acceleration of emigration, which was to characterise 1950s Ireland. Nevertheless, the trade union movement was generally supportive of protectionism in the post-war era, since it was seen to have brought about some improvement in the industrial situation. The unions, however, remained concerned about low pay and women’s unemployment. As Donal Nevin has commented:
The principle of protectionism was overriding. There was this residue of the idea of self-sufficiency, if we could produce all our own goods we would have full employment or that if we could keep out imports we would have plenty of work. There was no conception of developing a large export capacity like the big industrial companies. It was not as if anybody was talking about opening up protectionism and looking for new markets. Thus for both the union movement and the rest of the policy-making arena, there were two strong feelings: the need for protection to develop employment and the assumption that if you took self-sufficiency in that way you could create new jobs.1
Yet Irish wage rates – which had historically remained quite close to those prevailing in Britain – fell well behind in this period. By 1960 the average British worker earned at least 40 per cent more than his/her Irish counterpart.2This income gap served as a strong incentive for skilled workers to emigrate even when not threatened by unemployment. Comparatively, Ireland after 1945 failed to maximise its opportunities in the expanding European economy, and consequently did not share in the affluence that accompanied it. It was during the 1950s that Ireland went into relative decline against similar states in Western Europe. In most states, the process of post-war recovery was characterised by intensive industrialisation, the development of a strong export potential (often in manufacturing), and the acceptance of a broadly multilateral and free trade environment, expressed through the recognition of GATT rules.3Ireland clearly did not share in this experience – mainly because it made little attempt to. Economic policy-making continued to be restrictive, agriculture remained in a hegemonic position, and Ireland continued to be on Europe’s periphery in a political sense. Unlike other European states, Ireland did not achieve self-sustained growth in the course of the 1950s. Serious balance-of-payments problems plagued policy-makers during the first half of the decade, followed by recession and then a depression in 1957.
‘grappling with this new situation’
Trade union influence on policy-making in Ireland was much less marked than in most other Western European countries, including Britain, where the Trade Union Council had considerable influence on the Conservative Government’s economic policy.4Trade union influence in Ireland, however, was at best indirect and depended on Fianna Fáil being in office. The existence of two congresses caused great difficulties for unions, weakening their efforts, dissipating their resources, and making impossible a common front against the employer organisations, steadily growing more powerful. A divided trade union movement meant that any negotiations with the Government were destined to reach an unsatisfactory conclusion for one or other of the congresses, given the rivalry that existed between them. In practice, however, there were no serious ideological or organisational differences between the two congresses, while personal discord between the leaders had gradually disappeared by the mid-1950s.5
By the late 1950s, union leaders were well aware of the need for greater competitiveness and productivity. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, to which the PUTUO sent representatives, welcomed any movement that would harmonise European trading conditions:
Trade barriers between the participating countries in the form of tariffs and quotas will gradually be reduced and finally abolished during the transitional twelve year period and provide member countries with a market of 250 million people. It would lead therefore to a greater degree of industrial specialisation in the countries of Western Europe. The European trades unions are convinced that such co-operation would do much to raise and harmonise living standards, to improve social conditions generally and to extirpate national rivalries provided, however, that such co-operation is established in a realistic and progressive spirit.6
Trade unions throughout Europe saw the liberalisation of trade as a solution to the industrial problems of their nations, and suggested ways of making any such free trade area work. They rather unrealistically claimed that the abolition of unemployment was indispensable if a free trade area was to function properly. Thus, they sought changes in industrial structure and employment, a reduction of tariffs, gradual abolition of quotas, and the insertion of rules in a treaty on the setting up of such a free trade area. For the trade union movement, the fruits of new industrial met
hods could only be reaped by large economic units. Furthermore, the pace of technological change required an economic policy that would be based on a wider level than that of national borders.