The 1946 debate on the estimates for External Affairs provided an opportunity for the Opposition to explore Ireland’s relationship with the Commonwealth. Dillon said he wanted Ireland to be a member, but in any case she should make up her mind as to whether she was a Commonwealth member or a Republic. “Is there not something contemptible and rotten about pretending to be one thing when we are, in fact, something else?” Costello said “nobody but the Taoiseach knows what the present position is”. He believed useful results could be achieved from the Commonwealth association, “which I gather that the Taoiseach in some obscure way still says exists”. He argued that “our head of State, in so far as there is a head of this State, resides in Buckingham Palace”, because an international treaty between Ireland and the USA would be signed by the American President and the King of England. But he said he had no interest in the form of government, whether Ireland was a Commonwealth state, a kingdom or a republic—what concerned him was the State’s international standing. “The form of government makes no difference, provided we have freedom, that we are an independent State, and a fully fledged member of the family of nations. I do not care whether the head of State resides in Buckingham Palace or Phoenix Park, provided we are a sovereign State and that we are nationally and internationally free.”145 The logic of that argument was irresistible—the only way to achieve clarity about the State’s international status was to declare the connection with the Commonwealth, already dead in practice, to be dead in law as well. Patrick McGilligan made a similar point in the following year’s External Affairs debate: “If I have to make a choice between living a lie and some trouble arising in our international relations, I would rather have the trouble in international relations …”146 He, and Costello, would soon have that trouble in spades.
However, Costello in opposition displayed about as much consistency on this issue as he would display in government. Just a month after arguing the importance of clarity of status, he stressed during a debate on potential Irish membership of the UN that Ireland still belonged to the Commonwealth, “however tenuous at the moment that association may be”. He spoke of the advantages of an association which “Fianna Fáil and all other parties” recognised existed and would continue to exist. Costello would adopt a different position as Taoiseach. He would also reverse his views on neutrality, which dominated his speech on the UN. “Whether or not we were neutral in the last war, there can never be any question again of this country being neutral in any future war.” He believed United Nations membership would impose obligations making neutrality impossible, and appealed to all Deputies to admit this “and to see that there is no flapdoodle and tosh-talk throughout the country about our neutrality”. He said he supported the Irish application to the UN because “we must either join some combination of big nations which will protect us against aggression in future wars, or else leave ourselves open to become the plaything or the pawn of any big nation, or group of nations, in future world conflicts”.147 By the time he became Taoiseach, the logic of that argument would imply membership of NATO, but he managed to ignore that logic.
A long-running legal case with political ramifications concerned what were known as the Sinn Féin Funds—a sum of money vested in the High Court in 1924 by the two joint treasurers of the party (both pro-Treaty) in an effort to stop de Valera getting his hands on it. By the late 1940s, the money had accumulated to around £24,000—or about half a million euro in today’s values.148 In April 1947, de Valera brought in the Sinn Féin Funds Bill, to preempt the decision of the courts. Costello strenuously argued against the attempt to usurp the authority of the courts. He acknowledged that his first official act as Attorney General in 1926 had been to bring in a Land Bill dealing with the Lynam v. Butler case. But he made the point that the aim of that legislation had not been to overturn a decision of the Irish courts, but to prevent that decision being appealed to an outside body (the Privy Council). The decisions of the courts must, he said, “be regarded as sacred”. Costello also objected to de Valera’s claim that there was a difference between equity and law, claiming it was a “very dangerous doctrine for the head of Government to declare”.149
Costello was to appear for Sinn Féin President Margaret Buckley, along with Seán MacBride and Charles Casey. When the case came to court in February 1948, Casey plaintively complained that his co-counsel were now Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs respectively. Another barrister in the case, Cecil Lavery, was now Attorney General. The case was deferred to allow for new counsel to be briefed.150 Inside government, Lavery argued that the State’s case should be changed—it had originally objected to giving the funds to an organisation pledged to use unlawful means to achieve its aims. But Lavery asked whether this would include “residents of the 26 Counties organising a riotous assembly in … Belfast in pursuance of the object of destroying British authority in the Six Counties”. The Government decided that this aspect of the case should not be relied on, and that the Government should simply argue that it wanted a decision on who owned the money.151 Despite this change of tack, the judgement went against Sinn Féin—while the High Court accepted that the party in 1948 was the same as that of 1923, it was not the legal successor of the party of 1917–22, largely because when de Valera moved to resurrect Sinn Féin in 1923, he had ignored its existing officers and standing committee, thereby breaking the continuity of the movement.152 Not that it mattered greatly—by the time legal costs were paid, just £1,700 was left out of the original £24,000.153
That was in the future, though—in 1945, Fine Gael looked to be a long way from power. Liam Cosgrave, by far the most able and active of the party’s newer TDS, criticised irregular Dáil attendance at the start of that year. According to figures compiled by the Chief Whip, P.S. Doyle, Mulcahy managed to attend on 22 of the 25 sitting days between June and December 1944 while Cosgrave was present on 19. Costello managed just 12—although this was considerably better than MacEoin and McGilligan (eight each) and Dan Morrissey (just four).154 It was agreed to add a note of Dáil attendance to the parliamentary party minutes, and to circulate the figures for January and February to Deputies’ home addresses. Costello managed to attend on eight of the 15 sitting days in the first two months of the year, but voted in only three of the 13 divisions.155
The party was not, then, in particularly good shape as it faced a number of by-elections, as well as a presidential election. Mulcahy canvassed the other Opposition parties to see if an agreed presidential candidate could be found. He suggested Alfred O’Rahilly, a suggestion received with lukewarm enthusiasm by Joe Blowick of Clann na Talmhan and outright rejection by Labour. Some in the parliamentary party felt they should not contest the election at all, but deputy leader T.F. O’Higgins said failure to do so would leave Fianna Fáil “rampant”. “It was essential to keep the Party in existence and … no matter what chances the Party might have either in the Presidential or by-elections, they could not act otherwise than throw down the gauntlet every time”. Seán MacEoin, the chosen candidate, compared his situation to his experiences in the War of Independence. “The shortage of ammunition was a great worry then … it was even worse now, but the sacrifice demanded was not so great.”156
In the event, MacEoin won 31 per cent of the vote. Seán T. O’Kelly of Fianna Fáil was just under a quota with 49.5 per cent. The Independent Republican candidate, Patrick McCartan, later a major figure in Clann na Poblachta, won 19.5 per cent. McCartan had been supported by Labour, Clann na Talmhan and some Independents. Significantly, his transfers favoured MacEoin over O’Kelly—more than 55 per cent went to the Fine Gael man, 13 per cent to O’Kelly, and 32 per cent were non-transferable.157 Clearly there was potential for co-operation among the Opposition parties.
Costello later recalled the long years of Opposition as a period of “hard, arid, arduous work under conditions of no hope”.158 The understandably low morale within the party was demonstrated by the continuing poor attendance in the Dáil. A more serious portent
was a letter from Liam Cosgrave to Mulcahy in May 1947. “A party working under such conditions cannot have confidence in itself, let alone expect public confidence … While I do not wish to embarrass yourself or the party, in view of the pending Tipperary by-election, I must say that I cannot any longer conscientiously ask the public to support the party as a party, and in the circumstances I do not propose to speak at meetings outside my constituency.”159 Coming from one of the few rising stars in Fine Gael, this was an extraordinary vote of no confidence in the party.
If there were good reasons for believing that Fine Gael’s future was bleak, there were also indications that the Government was more unpopular than ever—particularly the formation and initial success of Clann na Poblachta, the new radical Republican party led by the exotic Seán MacBride. The new party won two of the three by-elections in October 1947, leading de Valera to call a general election for the following February. The Fianna Fáil government also faced an embarrassing political controversy over the sale of Locke’s Distillery to some foreign gentlemen who turned out to be crooks. The issue was raised by Opposition TDS, particularly the colourful Independent Oliver J. Flanagan, and a tribunal established. Costello’s contributions on the scandal concentrated on the constitutional point that Deputies had legal privilege for what they said in the Dáil. In an echo of points made in relation to the Wicklow Gold mining inquiry, Lemass had said deputies would have to give evidence of allegations they had made. Costello said such a move would infringe the Constitution, and that any Deputy would have to resist such a request. “Once a Deputy is obliged to give to any court other than this Dáil … his source of information, the independence of every Deputy and in particular of Opposition Deputies, is gone for ever and democracy is uprooted in this country.”160
An election loomed; and Fine Gael’s only chance of escaping from the Opposition benches lay in reaching agreement with the other Opposition parties. O’Higgins and Dillon had both been involved in attempts to form an alliance between Fine Gael, Clann na Talmhan and some of the Independents.161 These came to nothing, but there were other indicators that an alliance might be possible. Given Fianna Fáil’s implacable opposition to coalition, all other parties knew their only hope of office was through combination. Transfer patterns in the presidential and by-elections indicated that voters understood this logic. And in the Dáil, a long period in opposition inevitably led to greater co-operation among the parties. As Costello pointed out in April 1947, it was becoming increasingly obvious in the House that “every single Party, and Independent Deputy, are lining up against the Government, whatever the differences between themselves may be …”162
During the 1948 election campaign, he criticised Fianna Fáil’s record, claiming that “if the Irish people prove themselves incapable of choosing a substitute, democracy here cannot survive … If given a dominating influence in the new Dáil, Fine Gael would co-operate with any constitutional Party which would tackle the vital problems of poverty, disease, the cost of living and production.”163 The Fianna Fáil organisation in Dublin South-East put out a leaflet pointing to his admission that such a government would have to refrain for some years from dealing with issues about which “acute party differences exist”.164 Fine Gael’s new-found enthusiasm for coalition was a result in part of hard-headed calculation about their level of support, in part of understandable frustration at their inability to unseat Fianna Fáil. It was about to produce very surprising results—not least for John A. Costello.
Chapter 7
PLAYING WITH FIRE
“Now remember boys, if a government is formed, I won’t take any office, and I certainly won’t be Attorney General”.1
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 13 February 1948
“… a fear amounting almost to terror that I would be a flop as Taoiseach …”2
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 29 February 1948
On 15 February 1948, as on practically every Sunday morning for 40 years, Jack Costello played golf at Portmarnock. With him were the other members of his regular four-ball—his former school friend Dick Browne, then chairman of the ESB; Dick Rice, Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners; and Dublin City Sheriff Seamus O’Connor. He played well, as he told his son Declan, getting “a beautiful drive and a glorious second at the first hole, landing on the green and nearly getting a three”.3
Portmarnock was then, as now, a golf links “with a national and international reputation”,4 and Costello was captain of the club, a position he regarded as a great honour.5 But if more attention than normal was paid to the quality of his game—which was even noted in the Irish Times6—it wasn’t because of his position in the club. It was because this regular round of golf was played in far from ordinary circumstances. For John A. Costello was wrestling with the biggest decision of his political career: whether to accept the entirely unanticipated and unwanted chance of becoming Taoiseach of Ireland’s first coalition government.
Although he banned discussion of the subject as they played, it must have been on all their minds. Seamus O’Connor had already given his view—when they called to collect him, “he came out towards the car doubled up in two laughing at my predicament … and explaining, when I told him that I hadn’t yet accepted, that I had no choice”. After their round, his other companions agreed. Costello was surprised to get this advice from Browne in particular, “as I fully expected that with his non-political and very hard-headed outlook he would advise me against it”.7
But there was one more advisor he wished to consult before making his decision, his old university friend and rival Arthur Cox. At a quarter to five, he arrived in Cox’s office along with Rice and Browne, and they discussed the matter again. Cox observed that by entering politics, Costello had been “playing with fire”, and he had to expect to be burned at some stage. Having accepted what taking the job would mean to Costello, and praising his work as a senior counsel, Cox “finally produced the argument which finished the matter as far as I was concerned. He said that if I refused the nomination and the thing did not come off as a result of my refusal I would regret it for the rest of my life. That convinced me as I felt that I could not refuse.”8
The die was cast for Costello, though he spent the next three days hoping that something would happen to derail his election. While his agreement was crucial to the proposed coalition government, others had done the groundwork to make it possible. That groundwork really began with the increased co-operation on the Opposition benches noted in the previous chapter. This included transfer patterns in the 1945 presidential and 1947 by-elections, and a greater confluence of views in the Dáil, as the Fianna Fáil government became increasingly unpopular.
The wind of change was blowing too in the newly renamed constituency of Dublin South-East, where for the first time Jack Costello topped the poll, taking almost 29 per cent of the vote, while MacEntee was just under the quota with slightly less than 25 per cent. MacEntee would not regain his position at the top of the poll until 1961. The second Fianna Fáil TD, Bernard Butler, had moved to Dublin South-West, and the party lost its second seat in South-East to a new candidate, Dr Noël Browne of Clann na Poblachta, who won just under 17 per cent of the votes. None of the other candidates broke the 10 per cent mark.
The size of the Dáil had been increased as part of MacEntee’s attempt to secure Fianna Fáil’s position, from 138 to 147, the maximum allowed by the Constitution. Despite this increase, Fianna Fáil dropped one seat to 68; Fine Gael gained one seat to 31 (although, as this was a larger Dáil, the party’s percentage of seats actually fell), while its vote dipped below 20 per cent for the only time, to 19.8 per cent; Labour gained six seats to 14, while their separated brethren in National Labour gained one to five; on its first outing, Clann na Poblachta took 10 seats (a bitter disappointment to MacBride, who had expected to win many more); Clann na Talmhan lost four seats, returning with a total of seven; and there were 13 Independents.
The final result of the election was delayed due to the death of Fine Gael c
andidate Eamonn Coogan in Carlow-Kilkenny. The vote in that constituency having been deferred for one week, leading figures in all the parties descended to canvass. Prominent among them was Seán MacEoin, whose presidential campaign in 1945 had demonstrated that a Fine Gael candidate could attract support from Opposition voters. In Carlow-Kilkenny he met leading figures from the other parties, including Jim Larkin of Labour and James Pattison of National Labour, and concluded that an inter-party government could be formed, that the onus was on Fine Gael and its leader to make the first move, but that Mulcahy would not be acceptable as Taoiseach to Labour or Clann na Poblachta because of his Civil War record (although MacEoin, strongly in favour of Mulcahy’s leadership himself, formed the impression that the other parties would relent if no acceptable alternative was obtainable).
MacEoin reported his findings to Mulcahy the day after the vote in Carlow-Kilkenny, and found that his leader was already thinking along similar lines. However, Mulcahy pointed out that National Labour held the balance of power, and that the party’s National Executive was strongly inclined to support Fianna Fáil. MacEoin agreed to meet them behind the scenes to see what could be done.9 Meanwhile, Mulcahy consulted Fine Gael colleague Dan Morrissey, a former Labour TD, about his options. Morrissey said that even if a coalition could be formed it would probably only last six months, “but that I had to do it”. On 11 February he wrote to the other party leaders, inviting them to a meeting in Leinster House (Mulcahy evidently wasn’t superstitious—he set the meeting for Friday the thirteenth). All except National Labour attended.10
The Reluctant Taoiseach Page 24