Patrick Hillery
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| Rank | 6th President |
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| Term of Office | December 3, 1976 - December 2, 1990 |
| Number of Terms | 2 |
| Predecessor | Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh |
| Successor | Mary Robinson |
| Date of Birth | Wednesday, May 2, 1923 |
| Place of Birth | County Clare, Ireland |
| First Lady | Maeve Hillery |
| Political Party | Fianna Fáil |
| Profession | Doctor, Politician |
| Nominated By | (1976) Fianna Fáil (1983) own nomination |
| Other Candidates | (1976) none (1983) none |
Dr. Patrick John Hillery (born May 2, 1923) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician and the sixth President of Ireland from 1976 until 1990. First elected at the 1951 General Election as a Fianna Fáil TD for Clare, he remained in Dáil Éireann until 1973. During this time he served as Minister for Education (1959-1965), Minister for Industry & Commerce (1965-1966), Minister for Labour (1966-1969) and Minister for External Affairs (1969-1973). In 1973 he was appointed Ireland's first European Commissioner, serving until 1976 when he was appointed President. He shares the distinction, with Eamon de Valera and Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, of serving two full terms as President of Ireland, and is the only President who never faced an election.
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Early Life
Patrick John Hillery, commonly referred to as Paddy Hillery, was born in Miltown Malbay, County Clare in the then Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland in 1923. Educated locally and at Rockwell College and University College Dublin he qualified with a degree in medicine. He returned to his own native county where he worked as a doctor and County Coroner. Though not himself political he agreed under pressure from Clare's senior Fianna Fáil TD, party leader and former Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, to become his running mate in the 1951 General Election. The election resulted in a return to power for Fianna Fáil and Hillery was successful on his first attempt to get elected. Hillery remained on the backbenches until 1959 when de Valera retired as Taoiseach to become President of Ireland.
Cabinet Minister 1959-1973
The new Taoiseach, Seán F. Lemass, began the process of retiring de Valera's ministers, many of whom had first become ministers way back in the de Valera cabinet of 1932. Under Lemass party elders such as James Ryan, Seán MacEntee and Paddy Smith retired and a new generation of politicians were introduced to government such as Jack Lynch (who actually begun his ministerial career in the last de Valera governments of the 1950s), Brian Lenihan, Donagh O'Malley, Charles J. Haughey, Neil Blaney. Key among this new breed of politician was Hillery who became Minister for Education in 1959, succeeding Jack Lynch in that post.
As Minister for Education Hillery was responsible for much innovative thinking in a Department which would become very important under Lemass's leadership. In 1963 Hillery made a major policy speech in which he outlined many of the educational reforms that were to be introduced over the next decade. These included increased educational opportunities for many, the establishment of comprehensive schools and Regional Technical Colleges and access by students to all public examinations. As Minister for Education, Hillery laid the groundwork for other Ministers to advance the reforms and initiatives he had begun. He was succeeded by George Colley, Donagh O'Malley, perhaps the most famous Minister for Education, and Brian Lenihan, who all continued the process of reform.
In 1965 he succeeded Lynch again by taking over as Minister for Industry & Commerce. This Department was considered one of the most important in kick-starting Ireland's economy. Hillery only remained in this position for just over a year, becoming the country's first Minister for Labour in 1966. This new Department had been a dream of Lemass's for several years and Hillery had the honour of taking over. Lemass resigned as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil in November 1966, a shock to many of his political friends. Hillery was invited by Lemass to allow his name go forward for the leadership of the party, however, he declined explaining that he had no interest. Many historians have suggested that Hillery was Lemass's first choice to succeed him, however others have said that the Lemass pecking order went as follows: Jack Lynch, Hillery and George Colley. In the end Lynch succeeded Lemass after a leadership contest with Colley. Hillery retained his post as Minister for Labour follwoing Lynch's reshuffle of the Cabinet, serving until 1969.
Following yet another victory for Fianna Fáilat the 1969 General Election, Hillery became Minister for External Affairs (renamed Foreign Affairs in 1972), one of the most prestigious of cabinet posts. He earned a high international profile when, in the aftermath of the killing of thirteen unarmed civilians in Derry by British Paratroopers (known as "Bloody Sunday"), he travelled to the United Nations in New York to demand UN involvement in peace-keeping on the streets of Northern Ireland. The trip to the UN achieved very little, other than to draw the attention of the world to the worsening situation in the North of Ireland. During the whole period Hillery remained one of Jack Lynch's staunchest allies in pursuing peaceful means with regard to the possibility of a civil war breaking out. Hillery's tenure at the Department of Foreign Affairs wasn't consumed by affairs in Northern Ireland. In 1972, he negotiated Irish membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), a process that was completed in 1973.
European Commissioner 1973-1976
Following Ireland's entry into Europe Hillery was appointed the country's first European Commissioner inBrussels, taking over the Social Affairs portfolio. While Europe had gained one of Ireland's most capable and respected politicians, Jack Lynch was after losing one of his allies, and someone who may have been in line to take over the leadership following Lynch's retirement. As Social Affairs Commissioner Hillery's most famous policy initiative was to force EEC member states to give equal pay to women. However in 1976 the then Irish government, the Fine Gael-Labour Party National Coalition under Liam Cosgrave informed him that he was not being re-appointed to the Commission. He considered returning to medicine, perhaps moving with his wife, Maeve (also a doctor) to Africa. However fate took a turn when the then Minister for Defence, Paddy Donegan, launched a ferocious verbal attack on President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, calling him "a thundering disgrace" for referring anti-terrorist legislation to the courts to test its constitutionality. When a furious President Ó Dálaigh resigned, a deeply reluctant Hillery agreed to become the Fianna Fáil candidate for the presidency. He was elected without a contest as the only candidate, becoming President of Ireland on December 3, 1976.
President of Ireland
The 'Sex Scandal' and the Papal Visit
Though once voted the world's sexiest head of state by readers of the German Der Spiegel magazine, few expected Hillery to become embroiled in a sex scandal as president. Yet that scandal remains one of the biggest whodunnits of modern Irish politics. It occurred in September 1979, when the international press corps, travelling to Ireland for the visit of Pope John Paul II, told their Irish colleagues that Europe was "awash" with rumours that Hillery had a mistress living with him in Áras an Uachtaráin (the presidential palace), that he and his wife were divorcing and he was resigning the presidency. In fact, there was not one iota of truth in the story. Once the Pope had left, Hillery told a shocked nation that there was no mistress, no divorce and no resignation. In reality, few people had even heard of the rumours. Critics questioned why he chose to comment on a rumour that few outside media and political circles had heard. Hillery however defended his action by saying that it was important to kill off the story for the good of the presidency, rather than allow the rumour to circulate and be accepted as 'fact' in the absence of a denial. In that, he was supported by the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, whom he consulted before making the decision, and the leaders of the main opposition parties, Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael and Frank Cluskey of Labour.
Various theories have been speculated about to explain the ludicrous story. Some senior politicians blamed Britain's MI5 or MI6, suspecting that the story was intended to embarrass Ireland during the papal visit, as revenge for the assassination by the IRA of Earl Mountbatten of Burma (Queen Elizabeth II's husband's uncle) in Ireland in August 1979. Others blamed the Soviet Union's KGB, who supposedly wanted to find some way to wreck Pope John Paul II's visit, believing that the Pope while in Ireland would appeal to the IRA to stop its violence, this leading to peace and so easing the military pressures on the United Kingdom, a key member of the NATO ; a presidential sex scandal during the papal visit might have thrown the papal visit into turmoil and so destroyed any impact a papal appeal would have. Though written about by bestselling author Gordon Thomas, who claimed this 'plot' was known as Operation Irish One, few commentators or politicians give the claim much credence.
A far more widely held theory blames the internal rivalries in Fianna Fáil. In 1979, then taoiseach Jack Lynch had been in his party's leadership thirteen years and was facing growing unpopularity and opposition within Fianna Fáil from a republican faction under Health Minister Charles J. Haughey who were critical of Lynch's moderate policies over Northern Ireland. Two alternatives suggestions emerged. According to Sunday Independent journalist Raymond Smith, pressures were being put on Hillery to leave the presidency, re-enter active politics and become the Lynch wing of Fianna Fáil's challenger to Haughey in the forthcoming leadership battle. According to Smith, the rumours were spread to kill off that chance by damaging Hillery's leadership image as 'Mr. Clean'. However Smith's theory fails to take into account practicalities regarding the workings of the constitution (eg, Hillery could only challenge to become leader and so taoiseach by first winning a seat in Dáil Éireann. But no by-election was due. Even if one was engineered, could Hillery (already out of politics six years, three of them abroad) really be sure of winning a seat. Furthermore, having taken on the presidency to give it stability after the death of President Childers and the resignation of President Ó Dálaigh, it would be totally out of character for Hillery to throw of the office back into turmoil by becoming the second president in a row to resign and the third in a row (out of six presidents) not to complete their term of office). A more likely explanation is that some of Haughey's supporters saw the presidency as the best way they had to force Lynchs resignation as leader. In other words, were Hillery to be forced through scandal to resign, the public would demand that Lynch, Ireland's most popular and loved politician (albeit leader of an unpopular government) take on the office. Having declined the office in 1973, 1974 and 1976, the feeling was that only another presidential crisis could force Lynch reluctantly1 to take on the presidency. As a result he would not merely vacate the leadership (or in effect be forced to vacate it) but immediately leave Dáil Éireann, denying his preferred successor a crucial vote in the subsequent leadership election in the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party, which was expected when it did come by whatever means would be so tight it could be decided by a margin of one vote.
No-one knows which of the reasons led to the smear campaign. While senior opposition figures did privately blame British intelligence, senior government figures and people close to Hillery were convinced that the smear was directly related to the leadership ambitions of senior Fianna Fáil figures. They noted how in June 1979 the first direct elections to the European Parliament had taken place, and how that meant there were now Fianna Fáil MEPs and Fianna Fáil staff members based in Brussels, one of the cities where the rumours first apparently surfaced.
Hillery also hit the headlines when, on the advice of then taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey, he declined Queen Elizabeth II's invitation to attend the wedding of HRH the Prince of Wales and the late Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.
Phone Calls to the Áras: The Lenihan Tape Claim
However it was in 1982 that Hillery's reputation as president was arguably made. In January 1982, the Fine Gael-Labour government of Garret FitzGerald collapsed in Dáil Éireann on a budget vote. FitzGerald travelled to Áras an Uachtaráin to ask for a parliamentary dissolution, something which under Article 13.2.2.2 of Bunreacht na hÉireann President Hillery could have refused, forcing FitzGerald's resignation. However a series of phone calls (some published reports claim seven, others eight) was made by senior opposition figures urging Hillery to refuse FitzGerald a dissolution, so allowing Haughey to form a government. As expected, Hillery granted the dissolution. (No Irish president to date has ever refused one.)
By 1990, Hillery's term seemed to reaching a quiet end, until the events of 1982 returned, changing the course of the history of the presidency, Ireland and Hillery forever. Three candidates had been nominated in the 1990 presidential election; the then Tánaiste, the late Brian Lenihan from Fianna Fáil (widely viewed as the certain winner), Austin Currie from Fine Gael and Mary Robinson from Labour. In May 1990, in an "on the record" interview with Jim Duffy, an honours post-graduate student researching the Irish presidency, Lenihan had confirmed that he had been one of those phoning Hillery in January 1982. He confirmed that Haughey too had made phone calls. Jim Duffy mentioned the information in a newspaper article on the history of the Irish presidency in 28 September 1990 in The Irish Times. In October 1990, Lenihan changed his story, claiming (even though he had said the opposite for eight years) that he had played "no hand, act or part" in pressurising President Hillery that night. He made these denials in an interview in The Irish Press (a pro-Fianna Fáil newspaper) and on an RTÉ 1 political show, Questions and Answers. When it was realised that he had said the opposite in an 'on-the-record' interview in May 1990, his campaign panicked and tried to pressurize Duffy into not revealing the information. Their pressure backfired, particularly when his campaign manager named Duffy as the person to which he had given the interview in a radio broadcast, forcing a besieged Duffy to reverse an earlier decision and release the relevant segment of his interview with Lenihan. In the aftermath, the minority party in the coalition government, the Progressive Democrats indicated that unless Lenihan resigned from cabinet, they would resign from government and support an opposition Motion of No Confidence in Dáil Éireann, bringing down the government and causing a general election. Though publicly Taoiseach Charles Haughey insisted that it was entirely a matter for Lenihan, his "friend of thirty years" and that he was putting no pressure on him, in reality he gave Lenihan a letter of resignation to sign. When Lenihan refused, Haughey formally advised President Hillery to dismiss Lenihan as Tánaiste, Minister for Defence and member of the cabinet, which the President as constitutionally required duly did. Lenihan became the only candidate from his party to date to lose the presidency, having began the campaign as the apparent certain winner. Instead Labour's Mary Robinson, who already had had a spectacularly successful campaign, became the seventh president of Ireland, the first elected president from a non Fianna Fáil background, and the first woman to hold the office.
The revelations, and the discovery that Hillery had stood up to pressure from former cabinet colleagues including his close friend Brian Lenihan back in 1982, increased Hillery's standing substantially. From a low-key modest presidency that many had written off as mediocre, his presidency came to be seen as embodying the highest standards of integrity. His reputation rose further when opposition leaders under parliamentary privilege alleged that Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who in January 1982 had been Leader of the Opposition, had not merely rang the President's Office but threatened to end the career of the army officer who took the call and who, on Hillery's explicit instructions, had refused to put through the call to the President. Haughey angrily denied the charge, though Lenihan, in his subsequently published account of the affair, noted that Haughey had denied "insulting" the officer, whereas the allegation was that he had "threatened" him. Hillery, it was revealed, had called in the Irish Army's Chief of Staff the following day and as Commander-in-Chief of the Army had ordered the Chief of Staff to ensure that no politician ever interfered with the career of the young army officer.
In 1983 Hillery was again elected unopposed sharing the distiction with Seán T. O'Kelly and Eamon de Valera of serving two full terms as President of Ireland. Hillery left office in 1990 (he had served the maximum two terms), widely applauded for his integrity, honesty and devotion to duty. The previous image of Hillery, as low key, dull and unexciting (except for the bizarre 'sex rumours'), had been somewhat undermined. Hillery retired from public life. However he re-entered public life in 2002 during the second referendum on the Nice Treaty, when, along with most of the political elite, he urged a yes vote. The referendum was carried.
Hillery: A Foreign Assessment
In 2002, state papers released by the British Public Records Office under the 'Thirty Year Rule' 3 and published in the Irish media, revealed how Hillery was viewed. A briefing paper, prepared for then British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw, observed about Hillery:
- Dr. Hillery is regarded as a powerhouse of ideas, one of the few members of Fianna Fáil who has new policies and is eager to implement them.
- The greatest example has been in his present job [then, Minister for Foreign Affairs], where he has perforce concentrated on Anglo-Irish relations and, in particular the North (ie, Northern Ireland). Policy in this field is determined primarily between him and the Taoiseach; and it is likely that the Fianna Fáil new line owes much to Dr. Hillery. . . .
- Dr. Hillery has a pleasant manner. He can appear diffident and casual but has an undoubted intellectual capacity and a strong will; since the government crisis of 1970 he has appeared much more assured -- even brash -- and has handled the Dáil with confidence.4
Footnotes
1Lynch had reluctantly agreed to enter politics in 1948, reluctantly agreed to become a minister in de Valera's cabinet and reluctantly agreed to contest the party leadership. The belief was that with the right pressure he might reluctantly agree to become president too.
2 Under Article 28.10 of the Irish Constitution, a Taoiseach who has "ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann" (eg, defeat in a budget or loss of confidence) must either (i) resign, or (ii) seek a parliamentary dissolution. Under Article 13.2.2., where a Taoiseach in such circumstances requests a parliamentary dissolution, the President may "in his absolute discretion" refuse that request, forcing the Taoiseach back to the only other option, resignation. It is worth noting that the President of Ireland cannot ask someone to form a government. A Taoiseach is chosen by a vote of Dáil Éireann and only after that appointed by the President. So had Hillery refused FitzGerald a dissolution, he could not have asked Haughey to form a government. Haughey would have had to have been nominated by Dáil Éireann.
3Irish and British state papers are generally released after a delay of thirty years with the exception of papers that are deemed to 'damage the country's image or foreign relations' if they were to be released. In January 2003 the papers from 1972 were released. Irish and British newspapers give extensive coverage to the new releases from the National Archives in Dublin and the Public Records Office in Belfast and London at the start of every year.
4The Irish Times, 01.03.03
Political Career
| Preceded by: Newly created office | Minister for Labour 1966-1969 | Succeeded by: Joseph Brennan |
| Preceded by: Frank Aiken | Minister for Foreign Affairs 1969-1973 | Succeeded by: Brian Lenihan |
| Preceded by: New office due to Irish membership of the EEC | European Commissioner from Ireland 1973-1976 | Succeeded by: Richard Burke |
| Preceded by: Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh | President of Ireland 1976-1990 | Succeeded by: Mary Robinson |