The creator of modern Ireland

Sean Lemass

by Robert J. Savage

(University College Dublin Press, €17)

Joe Carroll

The author, who has a deep knowledge of the Lemass era, draws on the latest archival information in Britain as well as Ireland to throw further light on the career of a key figure in the consolidation of a young Irish state.

The most important chapter deals with the evolution of Lemass’s economic policy from the foundation of Fianna Fáil in the 1920s until his retirement as Taoiseach in 1966. The other chapters deal with his policy towards Northern Ireland and Britain, his dealings with the Catholic Church and his role in the setting up of a national television station in 1961.

Lemass’s conversion from the party policy of the 1930s of protection for native industry and small farmers to free trade, foreign investment and less dependence on agriculture in the 1960s has been well-documented by his numerous biographers. Professor Savage shows how this conversion was forced on him with the realisation after World War II that the policy so strongly supported by his leader, Eamon de Valera, was going to destroy the independence they had both fought for.

It was only when Lemass finally emerged from under de Valera’s shadow in 1959 to become Taoiseach that he had a free hand. He was doubly fortunate that this coincided with the new radical thinking in the Department of Finance under the inspiration of T.K. Whitaker embodied in the First Programme for Economic Expansion. The author shows that there was still a tough struggle for Lemass to overcome domestic opposition from vested interests in cosseted industries and to avoid being isolated from a Europe that was rapidly removing trade barriers through the European Economic Community and its rival European Free Trade Agreement. There was no room for Ireland with its economic handicaps in either.

While waiting for the opportunity to join the EEC, Lemass was forced to seek a new trade agreement with Britain our biggest trade partner by far. It is interesting to read the confidential reports on Lemass supplied by British officials to their ministers. 

They welcomed his pragmatism with relief after the more “visionary” de Valera obsessed with ending Partition.

Pragmatism

Lemass’s pragmatism also led to the unfreezing of relations with the ‘Six Counties’. Knowing how much this irredentist term annoyed Belfast, he ordered Irish officials to use ‘Northern Ireland’ instead. Not all did. Lemass was also the first Taoiseach to visit Belfast and to invite the Northern Premier, Captain Terence O’Neill, to Dublin.

Lemass’s relations with the Catholic Church were strained in 1952 when Fianna Fáil tried to implement the Mother and Child Scheme that helped to bring down the previous coalition in 1951. De Valera was hospitalised in the Netherlands with eye trouble so Lemass as Tánaiste bore the brunt, behind the scenes, of the hierarchy’s strong opposition to the lack of a means test for the scheme.

Three times, Lemass was summoned to Archbishop’s House in Dublin to be lectured by John Charles McQuaid on how this scheme was counter to Catholic social teaching. But Lemass would not be moved. It was only when de Valera returned that a compromise was worked out just as the hierarchy was about to release a public condemnation of the planned legislation.

The author points out that Lemass was not being accurate in his interview with Michael Mills of The Irish Press in 1969 when he had stepped down. Asked about clerical influence, Lemass replied that as Taoiseach “I never had the slightest problem in this regard”.

As Tánaiste it was a different story, but he was not going to say that.

He took a close personal interest in the setting up of Irish television and favoured a totally commercial enterprise which he saw as helping to bring in more foreign investment.

This chapter traces Lemass’s behind the scenes clash with the Department of Post and Telegraphs and its dogged secretary, Leon Ó Broin, over the model for the new RTÉ.

Surprisingly Lemass, although now Taoiseach, was outwitted by Ó Broin and his cabinet colleagues.