The Reluctant Taoiseach

by David McCullagh

  His biographer considers that Lane’s “intractability appears to have been responsible for the failure of his art gallery plan in Dublin”. His refusal to compromise on the site and architect for the project led to the Corporation’s rejection.207 After this row, he made a will leaving his paintings to London, but the British failure to exhibit them greatly annoyed him, so he wrote a codicil leaving them to Dublin instead. After his death in 1915 on the Lusitania, the codicil was found. But crucially it had not been witnessed, and was therefore legally invalid. A battle began between Dublin and London—neither of which had shown much interest in the paintings while Lane was alive.208

  Thomas Bodkin was a friend of Lane and, as we saw in Chapter 1, an acquaintance of Costello’s in UCD. He practised as a barrister as well as dealing in art, before becoming Secretary to the Commission on Charitable Bequests, and later Director of the National Gallery from 1927 to 1935. Even before taking up the latter post, he was widely regarded as an expert in art, and submitted a memorandum to the Provisional Government in January 1922 proposing that it should restore the recently abolished independent Ministry of Fine Arts.209 Bodkin was friendly with W.T. Cosgrave, writing speeches for him, as well as a comprehensive history of the controversy over the Lane Pictures.210

  He was also Honorary Professor of Art at Trinity College, which led to “sustained attack” from “some of the less respectable Catholic journals”.211 An example comes from the Catholic Bulletin of February 1931, which criticised a speech made by Bodkin: “[T]hese Catholic Friends of Trinity College, entrenched within the Central Catholic Library Organisation, persist in purveying Papist ‘rats’ for that Protestant rat-pit.” Bodkin was sufficiently concerned at this attack to send a copy of what he had actually said to Cosgrave. His speech suggested that Catholics confronted with “heresy” had a twofold duty: “We have first to protect ourselves: but we are also bound to try to do something for the heretics”212—by which he meant, of course, Protestants. It is illuminating that these far from ecumenical sentiments could be attacked as too liberal—and an indication that the similar views about Protestants of his friend Jack Costello were closer to the mainstream than might be realised today.

  Whatever about his religious views, Bodkin’s political opinions meant he was not consulted by de Valera about arts policy as he had been by Cosgrave, and in 1935 he moved to Birmingham to become the first Director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which opened in 1939. When Costello became Taoiseach in 1948, he sought Bodkin out to help pursue two pet projects—the Lane Pictures, and “our old and forgotten scheme of art in Industry and the possibility of developing artistic schemes in country districts”.213

  De Valera had displayed no great concern about the Lane pictures—when he mentioned it to Lord Rugby in February 1947, the British Representative said it was “the first time that Mr de Valera has brought up this ‘injustice to Ireland’ and I do not know why he is now moved to take an interest in it”.214 A month after Costello became Taoiseach, the British Cabinet was assured that the controversy was not likely to be revived by the Irish, and that no effort should be made to try to reach a settlement.215 Bodkin, however, had other ideas, writing to Costello in April that he had “a feeling in my bones that you are the man who will, at last, get these pictures back”.216

  The Taoiseach had an opportunity to raise the matter directly with the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, during the Anglo-Irish Trade talks in London. He found Attlee “a difficult man to get to know. He was very reserved and laconic, but after ranging over many aspects of Irish problems we came to that of the Lane Pictures.” Costello suggested that Attlee should recognise Ireland’s “strong moral claim” and make a gesture on that basis.217 He wrote to Attlee the following month, suggesting that the British people should “give the pictures to the Irish nation as a free gift and invaluable token of goodwill … The Irish people would then formally undertake to make liberal loans of the Pictures to English Galleries and to the North of Ireland.”218 Rugby informed London that the renewed Irish effort was due to Bodkin, as members of the Government “take little or no genuine interest in the topic on cultural or artistic grounds. Politics provides the main factor in keeping the question alive with them.”219 Politics, specifically the furore over the declaration of a Republic, also prevented further progress. In November, Attlee decided it was not the time to pursue the matter “while other and wider issues are under consideration”.220

  In January 1951, following the theft of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students, Lord Rugby advised London that “special precautions” should be taken to protect the Lane Pictures.221 One of the paintings, Jour d’Eté by Berthe Morisot, was stolen in 1956 by two Irish students, but returned undamaged to the Irish Embassy two days later.222 One of the students was the son of Sarsfield Hogan of the Department of Finance, who wrote a note of apology to the Taoiseach for “a folly which has put trouble on you and the Government”.223

  Costello continued to raise the Lane Pictures, both in government and opposition. In 1958, he strongly advised de Valera against accepting a suggestion from Professor Lionel Robbins, chairman of the board of the (British) National Gallery, of a loan of the pictures to Dublin, provided the Irish Government agreed “formally to abandon any claim to the legal ownership of the Lane pictures …”224 Costello advised de Valera that this condition was “so insulting as to be unacceptable”, although on the basis of previous experience with the British it might be regarded as an opening offer which would lead to discussions which could reach a reasonable settlement.225 He was right, and an agreement was eventually reached on a long-term loan of the pictures to Dublin.

  However, Costello, like the good barrister he was, spotted a change in a revision of the draft agreement which would prejudice the underlying Irish claim. The original draft suggested that the agreement “would settle for a considerable period the question of the Lane Pictures”. The underlined words were left out of a later draft,226 but reinstated after Costello spotted their omission. By the time final agreement was reached a new Taoiseach—Seán Lemass—was in place; he wrote to Costello thanking him for his “unfailing co-operation” in the matter.227 These thanks were repeated in a Dáil statement by Lemass in November. In his own statement to the House, Costello singled out Bodkin for praise.228

  The other issue on which Bodkin and Costello collaborated was the establishment of the Arts Council. Fianna Fáil Minister P.J. Little had proposed the establishment of a Cultural Institute or Council of National Culture in November 1945,229 but nothing was done about it. Costello, however, was personally interested in the arts, both for their own sake and for their applications to industry. The first step was to commission Bodkin to write a report on the arts. This was submitted to Government on 4 October 1949, and was scathing of existing cultural institutions, and of the neglect “amounting almost to contempt” for art in the education system. The report recommended the establishment of an Arts Council.230 There was no doubt about who Bodkin—and Costello—envisaged in charge of the new body. Bodkin told the Taoiseach that if he was offered the post of Chairman “I shall accept it promptly”. He was not going to come cheap, however, suggesting a salary of £3,000 per annum.231

  A lengthy correspondence ensued between the two men, with Bodkin not unreasonably insisting on a firm offer before giving up his job in Birmingham.232 He became alarmed at reports that the new Council would include in its aims the fostering and development of the Irish language, as well as music, literature and drama. Bodkin confessed he didn’t speak Irish, and wasn’t an expert in the other subjects either. “The work which I want to address myself to, and which alone I consider myself quite competent to do, is that connected in some way, however slight, with the visual arts.”233 Costello reassured him that these aims had only been included “to forestall criticism if they had been omitted”.234 Having finally received a formal job offer in January 1951, Bodkin now baulked, claiming that the terms o
f the Arts Bill “[reflect], to my mind, the old bureaucratic spirit of the Department of Education that so effectively frustrated the work I might have done when I was Director of the National Gallery of Ireland”.235

  With commendable patience, Costello claimed he “was not wholly disappointed” at Bodkin’s refusal. While his aim had been to secure Bodkin’s services, he felt he couldn’t press him unduly given the difficulties of the job he was asking him to do. He initially considered dropping the whole matter, but after “a breathing space” he decided to have the Bill redrafted. The Taoiseach confessed that he was at fault because “owing to pressure from the storms that were blowing on me in all directions I didn’t examine the Bill as closely as I should”. Among the storms he mentioned were “strikes—milk, bread, Railways, Banks—Estimates, Price Orders and a succession of … problems”. He also admitted that he had been “unduly influenced” by the advice of his Department’s Secretary and Assistant Secretary (Maurice Moynihan and Nicholas Nolan) that the Council should be under the remit of the Minister of Education rather than the Taoiseach.236

  The redrafted Bill met with Bodkin’s approval, and he suggested that he might be allowed to withdraw his refusal to accept the Director’s post.237 But the delay cost him the job—by the time the Arts Council was up and running, Fianna Fáil were back in power. Costello made an effort on his friend’s behalf, advising the new Taoiseach that he had intended to appoint Bodkin, that the legislation had been redrafted to meet his wishes, and that he would still be prepared to act.238 These representations evidently cut no ice with the new government, which appointed Paddy Little to the post.

  Bruce Arnold criticised the manner in which the Council was set up. “Without real power, direct ministerial responsibility, direct involvement within the civil service, a proper vote with political decisions about the spending of money, the Arts Council from its inception was set adrift on a course that left it to the mercies of its members and, more importantly, its director.” He argues that the establishment of the Council “was seen as a kind of absolution for the politicians”.239 This implies that once the Council was set up, politicians could ignore the arts. But, of course, they had been happily ignoring the arts for decades; at least now someone was obliged to pay some attention to the area.

  The historian of the Council offers a more balanced assessment, suggesting that Costello’s government “had taken the soft option in establishing an Arts Council without attempting to place it within an overall defined arts policy. But it is also true that the measure was the most significant step since independence towards the development of an official arts policy.”240 At the launch of the Council in January 1952, de Valera generously pointed out that its establishment “was due to the initiative of Mr Costello when he was Taoiseach”. Costello stressed the economic benefits of the arts and of the application of art to industry, adding that “there could be no nationality without art”.241

  Costello’s personal interest in the arts allowed him to use his position to secure real advances. His interventions in the field of foreign policy were to have more mixed results.

  Chapter 8

  MR COSTELLO WAS RARIN’ TO GO

  “Jack Costello had about as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.”1

  FREDDIE BOLAND

  “Mr Costello was rarin’ to go and, almost like a child with a secret, could not hold it …”2

  JOSEPH CHAPDELAINE, CANADIAN EMBASSY, 1950

  For more than a quarter of a century, a large statue of Britain’s Queen Victoria dominated the entrance to the parliament of independent Ireland. The Queen remained undisturbed on her plinth on the Kildare Street side of Leinster House during the decade of W.T. Cosgrave’s government, and the 16 years of de Valera’s first administration. It was significant that it was the government of John A. Costello which finally moved her.3

  The statute of the Famine Queen had considerable symbolic importance, but little artistic merit. Tom O’Higgins described it as a “work of intense, although no doubt unintentional ugliness … popularly known as ‘Ireland’s revenge’”.4 Even the British Representative in Dublin, Lord Rugby, admitted that the statue “is in itself not a beautiful object”.5

  At the end of June 1948, Costello informed the Dáil that the statue was to be removed to provide more car parking spaces.6 Rugby admitted that there may have been something in this, but that the Government was probably glad to find an excuse.7 Sir Eric Machtig of the Commonwealth Relations Office said it was “difficult to repress one’s feelings of indignation at this step”. But he thought there was little London could do about it—a view shared by King George vi, who agreed that “for the present, it would be better to take no action”.8 An attempt to purchase the statue by the Northern Ireland-based National Union of Protestants was rejected on the basis that MacBride didn’t want it re-erected “on Irish soil”.9 The statue eventually ended up outside the Queen Victoria Building, a shopping centre in Sydney, Australia.10

  The removal of the statue was symbolic—it showed that Costello, for whatever reason, was prepared to do things which de Valera had considered, but hadn’t quite got round to. That symbolism was marked in a cartoon in Dublin Opinion (used by Ronan Fanning on the cover of his seminal book Independent Ireland). The cartoon showed Victoria saying to a startled looking de Valera, “Begob, Eamon, there’s great changes around here!”11 The move outflanked de Valera and annoyed the British—and so was a perfect portent of what was about to happen to the External Relations Act.

  As we saw in Chapter 5, Costello had expressed doubts about the External Relations Act when it was brought in at the time of the abdication crisis, and his view hadn’t changed in the meantime. De Valera himself had had enough of the Act; he told Lord Rugby in October 1947 that “it had done no good and had involved him and his Government in difficulties and humiliation”.12 A Bill had in fact been drafted to transfer to the President the powers exercised under the Act by the King.13 During the 1948 election campaign, Rugby noted similar sentiments from MacBride and from Fine Gael deputy leader T.F. O’Higgins, and reported to London that “it is quite plain that the annulment of the External Relations Act will not be long delayed. No party has left the door open for any other course.”14

  However, the situation was complicated by lingering pro-Commonwealth sentiment within Fine Gael. The day after the despatch quoted above, the newspapers reported a speech by Mulcahy saying his party “would not alter the present position which has been accepted by all members of the British Commonwealth as being in consonance with membership”. Rugby noted that Mulcahy’s speech, coming so soon after O’Higgins had taken the opposite line, was “indicative of the way in which the Fine Gael party mismanage their affairs”.15

  Most Fine Gael supporters would presumably have taken Mulcahy’s views as definitive. Garret FitzGerald later recalled reassuring the inhabitants of Waterloo Road that the party supported Commonwealth membership.16 But of course, Mulcahy did not become Taoiseach; and Fine Gael was not in government on its own. Costello, however, had a long record of involvement in the Commonwealth, and in his election address he told the voters of Dublin South-East that if Fine Gael were in government, “it will not propose any alteration in the present constitution in relation to external affairs”.17 After his election, Rugby reported to London that he had learned “from a wholly reliable source that Mr Costello takes the line that though he does not like the Act he does not propose to interfere with it”.18 And the Taoiseach told journalists that the Government was “not making any change in the political structure of the State”.19

  As we saw in the previous chapter, MacBride said on the day the new Government was elected that he wouldn’t be pushing for the repeal of the Act. In his memoirs, he said it would have been “grossly unfair” to do so, given the problems it would cause for Fine Gael (and also for Clann na Talmhan—MacBride said Joe Blowick was “extremely conservative himself and was always terrified of anything that might possibly injure �
� our cattle trade”). As a result, by his own account, MacBride “decided not to bring it up at cabinet meetings”.20

  However, he did push out the boundaries of Ireland’s constitutional position, with Costello’s full agreement. This was most marked in the case of the presentation of credentials by the new Argentinian Minister in Dublin. These were addressed not to King George, as was the practice under the External Relations Act, but to President O’Kelly. Both Costello and Cecil Lavery, the Attorney General, approved this new procedure,21 which amounted to a significant undermining of the External Relations Act. This undermining would presumably have continued even if the Act was not repealed, thereby making it a dead letter.

  On the related issue of partition, the summer of 1948 saw considerable speculation about a possible breakthrough. For this, Costello must take some responsibility, as he was prone to loose and unrealistic talk on the subject. In July, he told the Dáil that “for the first time since 1922, this Cabinet will, by its policy and its actions, give some hope of bringing back to this country the six north-eastern counties of Ulster. I must speak on that subject … with restraint and responsibility, but I do make that assertion with all the confidence that I have in me.”22

  Although there appears to have been absolutely no basis for his confidence, journalists and diplomats naturally thought there must be something behind it. Vinton Chapin, the Counsellor in the US Legation, said to Costello’s son-in-law Alexis FitzGerald that he presumed the comments “are uttered because he knows they are to be followed by deeds”. FitzGerald, knowing that this was not the case, advised his father-in-law to stress “the inevitable gradualness of any possible solution”.23