OBITUARY:DR PATRICK J HILLERY, who died on Saturday, ended a distinguished public career by serving two terms as president of Ireland from 1976 to 1990 in the unique circumstances of being unopposed both times.
He accepted the highest office more out of sense of duty to his life-long party, Fianna Fáil, than a wish to occupy Áras an Uachtaráin for 14 years and all the constraints this entailed for a man who hid a sharp intelligence and shrewd political sense behind a diffident and easy-going manner.
The presidency, which was virtually imposed on him by his own party at a time of crisis following the resignation of President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, meant a premature end to a career in politics, spanning Ireland and Europe, at the early age of 53.
But whether Patrick Hillery had the driving ambition that could have made him a leader of Fianna Fáil and a taoiseach, if the presidency had not taken him out of active politics, was doubtful.
His first love was medicine, following in the footsteps of his father. It was a struggle for him to decide on a path that would mean abandoning a medical career and embracing the uncertainties of national politics.
His four years in Brussels from 1973 to 1976 as Ireland's first member of the Commission of the European Economic Community, later to become the European Union, opened up a wider vista than Irish politics. When the Fine Gael-Labour coalition refused to appoint him for a second term, he considered pursuing a new career in the European Parliament, where he would almost certainly have become leader of the Fianna Fáil group.
But this door and all others were shut when he responded to the urgent appeal from the then Fianna Fáil leader, Jack Lynch, to assume the presidency. It meant a "life sentence" he would sometimes say, only half jokingly, but he took his constitutional responsibilities seriously and carried out his presidential duties faithfully.
Inevitably, his low-key style suffered in comparison with that of his younger successors, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, but even they were to find that the Constitution discouraged any enlarged role for a president free of government control.
Patrick Hillery was born on May 2nd, 1923, at Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.
His father Michael Hillery was a popular doctor in the largely rural area and treated wounded IRA members during the War of Independence. The family home was burned by the Black and Tans.
Patrick Hillery was to retain strong nationalist feelings during his own political career and was not averse to displaying them on selected occasions as minister for foreign affairs when dealing with Northern Ireland.
He received his secondary education at Rockwell College, Co Tipperary, where he played on the senior rugby team. Golf and swimming were to become two of his favourite relaxations.
At UCD he obtained a BSc in 1943. Four years later he obtained first-class honours in his medical examinations and did postgraduate work in Canada and Switzerland.
He met his future wife, Maeve Finnegan, who was also a doctor, while specialising in paediatrics in Harcourt Street Hospital in Dublin. They married in 1955.
In the run-up to the 1951 general election, Patrick Hillery was approached to run as a Fianna Fáil candidate in Co Clare alongside no less a figure than the party founder, Éamon de Valera, who was to treat him "very much like a favourite son", he told an RTÉ interviewer years later. He was duly elected in 1951 and was to remain a TD for Clare until becoming EEC commissioner 21 years later.
In his early years as a TD, Dr Hillery also practised as the medical officer for Miltown Malbay Dispensary District and told de Valera he was not ready yet to give up medicine when hints were dropped about a ministerial post. But when Seán Lemass succeeded as taoiseach in 1959, he swept objections aside and appointed the young doctor as minister for education. There was no more looking back at medicine as he was to sit at the Cabinet table for the next 13 years.
Dr Hillery's contribution to the development of education in the Ireland of the 1960s has been underestimated, according to some observers who point to his laying the foundations of the comprehensive school system. He also expanded vocational training, helped to set up the Commission on Higher Education and promoted the OECD Investment in Education study.
In 1965, he moved for a brief period to industry and commerce and a year later to the new department of labour, which he had suggested to Lemass as a means of improving industrial relations.
Within months, Lemass announced his resignation for health reasons. The new minister for labour and the minister for finance, Jack Lynch, were both sounded out by Lemass as possible successors and Patrick Hillery was also approached by some senior ministers, he later revealed to Lemass's biographer, John Horgan.
In an RTÉ interview before becoming president in 1976, he expressed doubts about his abilities as a leader.
"I would have had serious doubts about myself but it must be great to be a leader of the Fianna Fáil party. It must be marvellous, you know, to be a head of government."
In 1966, he preferred to remain as minister for labour and brought forward important legislation dealing with industrial relations and redundancy conditions. In accordance with his view that governments could not win in strike situations, he was reluctant to intervene during a prolonged ESB strike in 1968.
Following the election in June 1969, which Fianna Fáil won easily under its new leader, Dr Hillery was appointed minister for external relations (later to change to foreign affairs) to succeed Frank Aiken. The new minister was soon to face two huge challenges - the Northern Ireland crisis following the rioting in Derry's Bogside in August that year and the negotiations for Ireland's entry into the EEC.
As the Northern Ireland situation worsened and divisions arose in the cabinet on policy, which culminated in the Arms Trial in 1970 involving several ministers, Patrick Hillery never wavered in his loyalty and support for Jack Lynch, although his strong nationalist background led him to identify with beleaguered Northern Catholics. Even as he was dealing with British ministers in efforts to calm the situation in Northern Ireland, he was also prepared to flaunt his nationalist credentials, as when he paid a swift visit to the Falls Road to show solidarity with the community there during a tense period in 1970.
One of the most gripping images of that period was that of the normally mild-mannered Patrick Hillery bellowing during the 1971 Fianna Fáil ardfheis as violence flared on the floor: "You can have Boland but you can't have Fianna Fáil." Kevin Boland, a former ministerial colleague, had resigned in protest at what he saw as a betrayal of Fianna Fáil principles on Northern Ireland.
Dr Hillery undertook several missions to the United Nations to plead for UN intervention in Northern Ireland, even if privately he knew that the British veto in the Security Council would never allow this to happen. He feared that the casting of the veto would be damaging so he worked cleverly behind the scenes - and with some co-operation from the British - to ensure he could state his case without pushing matters to a vote.
Following the Bloody Sunday killing of civilians by British paratroopers in Derry in January 1972, Dr Hillery was again dispatched to the UN and Washington to seek international assistance, but surprised the US media by declaring at a press conference at Kennedy airport that "if Ireland received no help from the West, she might turn to the East". It was probably not meant to be taken seriously but to convey the dangers of a situation which had left the British embassy in Dublin a smoking ruin as he flew to the US.
During this time, as minister for foreign affairs, he was leading the negotiations for Ireland's full membership of the EEC, travelling frequently to Brussels and keeping close contact with British ministers to ensure that Irish interests would not suffer as the larger applicant sought special deals.
Assisted by an expert team of negotiators from various departments, he was successful in securing special treatment for the car assembly industry and the sugar industry.
The common agricultural policy was greatly advantageous for Ireland, but like the other applicants, Ireland was confronted with a fait accompli on fishing when the original six member states agreed a common policy involving equal access to the territorial waters of the new members "up to the beaches". The best that could be obtained was a gradual phasing in of access and special protection inside the 12-mile limit.
As the negotiations drew to a close, it became clear that Dr Hillery had the main claim to being appointed as Ireland's member of the EEC commission. He used his influence built up over the 18-month negotiations to secure the high-profile social affairs portfolio and be appointed one of the four vice-presidents.
Social affairs had suddenly become high profile following the Paris pre-enlargement summit at which the German chancellor, Willy Brandt, and the French president, Georges Pompidou, had insisted on a new emphasis on improvement in living and working conditions and giving the EEC a "human face".
Dr Hillery was told to produce a social action programme by the end of his first year in Brussels, a severe test in view of the need to settle into a new post in a multinational organisation and with unfilled vacancies in the senior ranks of the social affairs directorate-general. Matters were not helped as the first oil crisis struck later in the year and unemployment began to climb in all member states.
A change of government in Dublin soon after his move to Brussels meant that the new commissioner was dealing with an Irish administration of recent political opponents rather than allies, but he kept a smooth relationship going as he learned the ropes.
One exception was a clash with the Fine Gael- Labour coalition over the directive for equal pay for women, which the minister for finance, Richie Ryan, wished to postpone for budgetary reasons.
The social affairs commissioner may have angered some Irish ministers by his refusal to grant Ireland a derogation but he won widespread approval elsewhere, not least among women's groups.
His spell in Brussels also resulted in improvements for migrant and handicapped workers and the setting up of a combat poverty programme. After some initial staffing problems, Dr Hillery settled down to a fruitful term in the commission but with the change of government at home, there was little chance that he would be reappointed at the end of four years.
By a strange coincidence, his public acknowledgement that he had been informed by the then taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, that he would not be reappointed, coincided with the sudden resignation of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh from the presidency over offensive remarks by the minister for defence, Patrick Donegan. Inside two weeks, Dr Hillery had been nominated by the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party as the party's presidential candidate by 55 votes to 17 for Joe Brennan.
Fine Gael, which had no chance of winning a presidential election, was content to give the Fianna Fáil candidate a free run.
He was declared president of Ireland unopposed and inaugurated on December 3rd, 1976. He denied on RTÉ that he had been "a reluctant candidate".
Later when there was criticism that his was a low-key presidency compared with those of his predecessors, Erskine Childers and Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, Dr Hillery would explain that his priority was to provide stability for the office after the upheaval of the Ó Dálaigh resignation.
But his own presidency was shaken when an amazed country heard in October 1979 of his denial of claims that he was about to resign because of rumours of his involvement with another woman whom he might have known during his time in Brussels. In fact, few people were aware of such rumours but they had circulated among the large media presence for the papal visit the previous month and the president felt obliged to issue a statement when he was told the rumours would be reported in a British newspaper.
After meeting editors and political correspondents at Áras an Uachtaráin, the president issued a statement saying there is "no reason why I should resign" and "thank God we have a happy family life".
As his term drew to a close in the summer of 1983, the president let it be known privately that he would prefer not to seek a second term. But after several months of speculation and strong appeals from the leaders of the three main parties to continue, he announced that he would renominate himself as a candidate. Again he was unopposed and declared president.
He was inaugurated on December 4th, 1983, at a low-key ceremony in Dublin Castle for which the expenses had been cut by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition as one of its economy measures.
The president had declared that a campaign against drugs would be a major theme of his second term but for some reason he did not follow up on this. There were the customary state visits abroad, including to Australia, New Zealand and China. There was some media criticism that his had become a golf-playing presidency and it was reported that the president had replaced King Baudoin of Belgium as the head of state with the lowest golf handicap.
A pall was cast over this term by the death on March 26th, 1987, of the Hillerys' daughter, Vivienne, then aged 17, from leukaemia.
As the 1990 presidential campaign got under way, there was considerable controversy over an incident which occurred during Dr Hillery's first term on the night that Dr Garret FitzGerald's first government fell, January 27th, 1982, following defeat on a budgetary vote. That night a number of telephone calls were made by Fianna Fáil ministers to the Áras to try and persuade the president not to dissolve the Dáil at the request of Dr FitzGerald but to call on the Fianna Fáil leader, Charles Haughey, to form the next government.
President Hillery told Dr Fitzgerald he was deeply upset at what he regarded as unwarranted attempts at political interference.
Brian Lenihan, who was the Fianna Fáil candidate to succeed Patrick Hillery in 1990, denied during the campaign that he had been one of those who had telephoned the Áras, but a tape of an interview with a research student, in which Lenihan said he had telephoned, was then released. Lenihan explained that he was confused on the day of the interview because of medication he was taking for his liver transplant, but the incident may have cost him the election.
Haughey was also alleged to have been one of those who made calls to the Áras but were unable to speak to the president.
After his retirement from the presidency, Dr Hillery said in an interview in The Irish Times that he might yet have to give his version of what happened on that night. He also expressed anger at being instructed by Haughey's government not to attend a memorial service in St Patrick's Cathedral organised by the British Legion to commemorate Armistice Day in November 1980 and then to discover that a minister of state had attended.
The president had been widely criticised for refusing to attend "the ceremonies of foreign armies" but he had not revealed that this was on the orders of Haughey's government.
He was also advised by that government not to accept an invitation to the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana eight months later, but said that this coincided with his own views.
After retirement from the presidency in 1990, Dr Hillery remained active. He attended numerous official functions up to earlier this month, when he was present at a British-Irish Studies Conference in UCD.
He campaigned for a Yes vote in the second Nice referendum in 2002.
The release of State papers under the 30-year rule threw some new light on his activities as minister for foreign affairs in dealing with Northern Ireland. The papers also showed that in 1977 he threatened to move out of Áras an Uachtaráin and use it merely as an office if the then coalition government did not provide him with proper transport.
In the numerous tributes following the news of his death, there was much emphasis on his modesty and charm. Those who met him were always struck by his unassuming manner and sense of humour. As long as his health permitted he pursued his lifetime love of golf, having been one of the country's best amateur golfers in his younger days.
He is survived by his wife, Maeve, and son John. He was predeceased by his daughter Vivienne.
Patrick Hillery: born May 2nd, 1923, died April 12th, 2008