The Reluctant Taoiseach

by David McCullagh

  However, Costello didn’t need to use the letter, for on the day it was written he was able to produce in court a copy of Kavanagh’s novel Tarry Flynn, signed by the author: “For Brendan, poet and painter, on the day he decorated my flat, Sunday 12th, 1950” (the month was not included in the inscription). As Kavanagh’s biographer noted, this badly damaged his credibility with the jury, “who may have had difficulty in following the heavily literary content of the cross-examination, but who could recognise what appeared to be a palpable lie on his part as to his relations with Behan”. The book had been given to Costello by Rory Furlong, a half-brother of Behan’s, who had also been annoyed by Kavanagh’s evidence.101

  Costello’s cross-examination was relentless, forensic, and devastating for Kavanagh. The poet spent a total of 13 hours in the witness box, answering 256 questions from his own counsel, and no fewer than 1,267 from Costello. At one point his return to court was delayed for 20 minutes as he was examined by a doctor. Kavanagh referred to his tormentor as the representative of a “small, pernicious minority”, but then apologised. Costello brushed off the comment, saying he took no offence from it.102 This exchange took the venom out of the cross-examination—but by this stage, Costello had done what he needed to do.103

  It took the jury just an hour and a quarter to decide that Kavanagh had not been libelled. He was “stunned … and dreadfully upset” by the verdict. There was some criticism of Costello’s cross-examination, then and later, as being unduly aggressive. But Kavanagh evidently didn’t feel that way—he voted for Costello in the 1954 election.104 The poet was also reported to have said of Costello, “If that bloody fellow had been working for me, I’d have won me bloody case!”105

  As well as recognising Costello’s legal skills, he also recognised that the new Taoiseach might feel—or be made to feel—a sense of obligation towards him, and that he would therefore be a soft touch. Costello did in fact have a great respect for the poet, and spoke of his sympathy for him as he faced serious poverty (although of course as a barrister his first responsibility was to win the case for his client).106 By the time the case was appealed, he was Taoiseach and therefore played no role in the proceedings. The Supreme Court granted the appeal, but the case was settled before coming back to the High Court. Kavanagh let it be understood that he had got nothing out of it because The Leader had no money, but in fact he did receive an undisclosed lump sum.107

  A more immediate prospect of some financial gain was through the Taoiseach, who he proceeded to hound in search of a job. For Christmas 1954, he sent Costello a copy of a new poem, “Prelude”. The Taoiseach responded that he wished he could “acknowledge more gracefully and more substantially the grace and substance” of the poem.108 In February, Kavanagh wrote to “the man who of all people in Ireland probably knows me most intimately”, saying his economic position was “impossible” and he would have to emigrate. He suggested a number of solutions to his plight, which he indicated had first been suggested by Costello himself “though I failed to take up the cue at the time”. These were a grant from the Arts Council, or a job in the Radio Éireann newsroom, or in the publicity department of Aer Lingus.109

  The Taoiseach set to work, trying to persuade the President of UCD, Michael Tierney, to provide Kavanagh with a job, while also putting pressure on the Arts Council to do something for the poet. He told Paddy Little, the Director of the Council, that “the underlying idea is to give assistance to a person of literary achievements who is in need of encouragement perhaps more than financial aid”.110 Kavanagh may have disputed the latter observation, as he was at this time recovering in hospital after having a lung removed. The Taoiseach visited him in hospital, spending over an hour with the poet.111

  At the end of May, Costello wrote with good news—Tierney had arranged for Kavanagh to deliver lectures in UCD. He also believed the Arts Council would be prepared to “sponsor” him in some capacity. Costello suggested a commission for a volume of poetry, a critical study, or a book of essays.112 Kavanagh replied that he “would like very much to put into book form my arguments regarding the nature of the poetic mind; this could be a very interesting book … This would not be essays but a loosely continuous argument under a generic title.”113

  The Council agreed to this suggestion, but predictably the promise of money in the future wasn’t enough for the poet. At the start of July he wrote to Costello to announce that his landlady was threatening to evict him by the end of the month because he owed over a year’s rent. He asked the Taoiseach to see if the Council would give him £100 up front.114 This Costello did, telling Little that “it would all be part of the effort to help one of our great living poets to survive and would, I believe, be within the competence of the Council even if no return were ever received for the expenditure”.115 Not surprisingly, the Council didn’t agree, especially as “Mr Kavanagh has let it be known that he is to receive a grant from the Council and that he feels entitled to spend any such money that he may receive on any purpose that he himself thinks fit.”116 However, under strong pressure from the Taoiseach, the Council gave in and agreed to commission Kavanagh to write the book, with a £100 advance.117 As an indication of how the Council members felt about this, they adopted at the same meeting a standing order banning all future individual applications for financial assistance.118

  This wasn’t the end of the matter, as was usual where money and Patrick Kavanagh were concerned. He wrote to Costello in June 1956 sympathising on the death of his wife—and also seeking an appointment to talk to the Taoiseach about his financial situation.119 At around this time, the poet had sought the payment of the remaining £100 from the Arts Council, which was only due when he finished the book, “and became abusive when he met with a refusal”.120 This was presumably what he wanted to talk to Costello about, but the balance of the money doesn’t appear to have been paid.

  There is no doubt that Kavanagh had found a very powerful patron in Jack Costello. It is possible that the Taoiseach’s support was due to a guilty conscience after their court encounter, but it is far more likely that it was another example of his humanitarian instincts. He collected various hard-luck cases throughout his life, and did his best to help them. He continued to do this after he left office—for instance, he frequently gave Kavanagh lifts in his State car.

  On one such occasion, the irrepressible poet asked Costello’s Garda driver, Mick Kilkenny, to buy him a half-bottle of whiskey in the Waterloo House on Baggot Street (the inference being that he was barred from that establishment at the time). Costello said a Garda on duty couldn’t go into a pub and offered to go in himself, but the driver insisted on doing it to save the former Taoiseach the embarrassment of being seen in a pub. Characteristically, Kavanagh complained about the price, as the whiskey was sixpence more than other places. Equally characteristically, after Costello was dropped home he asked his driver to take Kavanagh wherever he wanted to go. The poet told Kilkenny that Costello was a “wonderful man”, who was never too busy to pass the time of day with him.121

  As well as a very busy professional life, the period as leader of the Opposition between 1951 and 1954 also saw an increasing volume of constituency work. Costello was now a national figure, and had to deal with correspondence from all over Ireland as well as from Dublin South-East. He spent a lot of time dealing with requests from constituents seeking help getting jobs or housing. As he wearily told a Dublin Corporation official some time later, “notwithstanding abundant evidence to the contrary, my constituents have a child-like belief that I am able to get houses for them …”122

  Not every request, though, was so mundane. In September 1952 he got a letter from Michael Gallagher of Gort, who complained that his neighbour “has got an unlicensed bull for his seven milch cows, which is danger to us next the wall outside. If he break out, our heifer is in danger. See to him please.” Costello’s secretary, Ita McCoy, wrote that he “considers this the prize letter of his political career, and therefore does not want to par
t with it”. He did, however, want the local TD to look into the matter.123 After all, every vote counts.

  Politics was allowed to intrude as little as possible into domestic life. In 1953, The Irish Home magazine sought to do a feature on his home life, following a similar article on President O’Kelly. Positive coverage was assured by the promise that the text and the photographs would be submitted to him for approval before publication, but he declined anyway, as “my wife and myself do not wish the privacy of our home to be the subject of public comment”.124 Family life continued to be important to him, especially now that grandchildren were arriving. He was known to his grandchildren as ‘Pampam’, while Ida was called ‘Nangie’—a result of the inability of their first granddaughter, Jacqueline FitzGerald, to pronounce Grandpa and Granny properly as a small child.125

  At this time, the youngest Costello daughter, Eavan, went for a medical examination before taking up a job as a librarian in UCD. A heart problem was discovered, which needed surgery to insert an artificial valve. She had to go to London for this pioneering surgery, being one of the first people to have it.126 However, by March 1953 she had recovered enough to take up her job.127

  Wilfrid’s troubles continued, and it appears that he was in residential care at this time. The Abbot of Glenstal, Dom Bernard O’Dea, wrote in February 1952 to say he had received “an excellent letter from him … in which he admitted his unreasonableness to the family”. In reply, Costello said, “Wilfrid is continuing to make progress. He is quite settled down and writes very cheerfully.”128 This may have been a reference to his time in a psychiatric hospital in Scotland.129

  In the Dáil, Costello continued to be influenced by his professional background. In July 1953, he supported a Courts of Justice Bill, despite concerns that some of its provisions would impinge on judicial independence, because it also provided for increases in judicial salaries. He claimed that judges had been hit by the economic downturn just as the unemployed had, and that salary increases were needed to ensure they could continue “to keep themselves free from not merely the actuality of corruption, but from the possible breath of corruption”. Intriguingly, he denied a personal interest, saying that “not merely have I no ambitions and no desires but I rather think I have no opportunity of ever finding myself upon the Bench”.130 Whatever about ambition and desire, he was about to be offered an opportunity for a place on the highest bench of all.

  The offer came from an unlikely source—Eamon de Valera. Following the death of Supreme Court Justice John O’Byrne (Costello’s predecessor as Attorney General) in early 1954, the Cabinet agreed that the Taoiseach should approach the leader of the Opposition to see if he was interested in the vacancy. According to his own memorandum of the conversation, de Valera phrased the offer in a rather indirect way. “I said I didn’t know whether he would under any circumstances consider it, or whether in the present circumstances he would feel at liberty to consider it.” Costello replied that “he had burnt his boats and realised the consequences. He had given up hopes of an easy life and he could not give the opportunity for charges of the Sadlier and Keogh type to be made against him.”131

  The latter reference was to two Irish MPS who in 1852 took office under Lord Aberdeen, breaking their pledge to remain in independent opposition at Westminster. The fact that their names were still common political currency just over a century later shows the damage to their reputations. Clearly, this leader of the Opposition felt it would be impossible for him to take a judicial appointment offered by the Government, though de Valera was at pains to stress that the offer was due to “his position at the Bar, and our duty to get the best Supreme Court possible”. But the political implications of acceptance must have been clear to both men.

  Political principle played a part—but so did personal preference. Jack Costello frequently said he had no interest in being a judge, saying he preferred “to be fighting my cause, either as an advocate or a politician … A Judge has to be aloof, living in a rarefied atmosphere of seclusion.”132 He also felt he wouldn’t have been able to stop being an advocate from the bench—like Cecil Lavery, who was notorious for interrupting counsel’s argument to summarise in a more succinct way the point being made.133 Most who knew him agreed that he wouldn’t have suited, or enjoyed, life on the bench.134 After his refusal, the appointment went to Martin Cyril Maguire, who had been called to the Inner Bar on the same day as Costello in 1925, and who was already a judge of the High Court. The Minister for Finance, Seán MacEntee, must have had mixed emotions at this result. He had, on cost grounds, argued that a High Court judge, who would not be replaced, should fill the £3,700-a-year place on the Supreme Court bench, rather than appointing from outside the judicial ranks.135 But he had missed an opportunity of getting rid of his most formidable constituency rival.

  And electoral considerations were about to become critical again, with two poor by-election results pushing de Valera into a general election. The vacancies were caused by the deaths of two Fine Gael TDS, Dr T.F. O’Higgins of Cork Borough, and James Coburn of Louth. The significance of the result was not the double Fine Gael victory in the 4 March polls, but the scale of the swing towards the main Opposition party. In Louth, the Fine Gael vote increased from 35 per cent in the 1951 general election to 43.4 per cent. The swing in Cork was even more pronounced, from 30 per cent to 44.3 per cent. Costello later told the American Ambassador that the “landslide” in the Cork by-election had been a “great surprise” to Fine Gael.136

  On the evening the results were announced, the Government met in Leinster House. Shortly before 11 p.m., the Director of the Government Information Bureau, Frank Gallagher, announced that the Taoiseach was “of opinion that it is necessary that a general election should be held as soon as the financial measures required to provide for the public services have been completed”.137 This was taken to mean a quick election after the Vote of Account was put through the Oireachtas. Newspaper reports suggested that this statement “came as a surprise even to prominent Fianna Fáil deputies”.138

  Lemass, who was in London at the time, later told Fine Gael’s Patrick Lindsay that he disapproved of the announcement, as he felt there was really no need for an election.139 Many backbenchers were said to be “distressed by the prospect of campaigning immediately under the impact of two very heavy defeats” and brought pressure to bear on the Cabinet to delay polling day.140 In this manoeuvre, de Valera was helped by his customary ambiguity of phrasing—precisely which “financial measures” was he referring to? Costello submitted a parliamentary question the day before the Dáil was to resume after the by-elections to try to get an answer to that question. In the face of this prompting, de Valera phoned Costello to tell him the election would be held on 18 May, after the Budget, making for a very long campaign indeed.141

  The Taoiseach claimed that delaying until after the Budget would allow voters “to be presented with all the essential facts concerning the State finances”, as well as allowing for the use of the latest register of electors.142 Costello accused him of bowing to political expediency, putting the country “to the trial and the expense of an unnecessarily long drawn out election”, and pointing out that if the Government was calling an election because it had lost public support, “it can have no authority to bring in a Budget”.143 That Budget would also, presumably, be designed to appeal to the voters.144

  MacEntee’s last Budget did indeed contain a reduction in income tax, as well as an increased subsidy for wheat and flour. Costello characterised it as “a recantation” of the policies introduced in 1952. “The proposals in the Budget as a whole are an admission of the failure of those policies and in many respects they furnish striking justification of the charges that we made … that the [1952] Budget … contained wholly unjust and unnecessary over-taxation.”145

  Two issues dominated the campaign itself: the economy, and the relative merits of coalition and single-party government. Labour was intent on driving a hard bargain if it was to participate
in government again. In 1952, it had determined that a special delegate conference would have to approve any proposal to enter government. As the campaign opened, the party leadership stated that they would only enter a coalition that was “publicly committed in advance to an agreed programme of economic and social measures in broad conformity with Labour policy”. In particular, the party was insisting on the reintroduction of the food subsidies abolished by MacEntee in 1952. The British Ambassador observed that they were attempting to entrench themselves so deeply that “Fine Gael … would have to advance nearly all the way to meet them”.146 De Valera agreed, accusing the party of demanding the right to veto government policy. “Even as a small minority it is the will of the Labour Party that must prevail.”147

  Fine Gael clearly had to stake out its own position, without alienating Labour. Costello stated that while his party would do its best to maximise its own support, it would “invite those other parties especially representative of important sections of the national life to join with it and participate in the creation and conduct of the vigorous, courageous and constructive government which the country so urgently requires. In such a Government there would be neither domination by a majority nor dictation by a minority, but co-operation for the common good.” He added that collective responsibility would be observed in the same way as in a single-party government148 (which would be a change from his first administration). He went further towards the end of the campaign, insisting that it would be “contrary to the national interest for Fine Gael to govern on its own” even if it had a majority.149