Dr Garret FitzGerald provides an extraordinary portrait of Cearbhall O Dalaigh in his column in The Irish Times of September 20th under the heading, "Presidential candidates should be aware of the realities of office". While agreeing that Cearbhall O Dalaigh was "an erudite and charming man", he writes that "his lack of political experience and occasional rhetorical self-indulgence caused some real problems" - to the then-government, seemingly.
O Dalaigh was not devoid of political experience: he had served two terms as Mr Eamon de Valera's Attorney General. As such, he would have had to know about the workings of all Government Departments as well as his own office and, while the Attorney General undoubtedly exercises an independent role, his political antennae need to be set right at all times. In addition, he had run unsuccessfully for the Dail and had campaigned on many a political platform, particularly in Co Kerry.
As regards the problems it is said that he caused, since they are not specified in the article we cannot judge whether, if he did cause problems, he was justified in doing so.
It is the case that he referred two Bills to the Supreme Court, but that was his constitutional right and in any event, on a purely pragmatic level, both Bills were held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court. (Parenthetically, it may be noted that President Robinson referred four Bills to the Supreme Court during her tenure of office, three of which were held to be repugnant to the Constitution.)
Dr FitzGerald then goes on to refer to O Dalaigh being "difficult and even eccentric". Nearly 20 years have elapsed since his death and a new generation will have grown up who did not know the man and, therefore, it is necessary to put the record straight in regard to one who served not only as President of Ireland but on the Supreme Court for 20 years (12 of those as Chief Justice) as well as for a short stint on the Court of Justice of the European Communities at Luxembourg.
I do this not only because he had befriended me from my earliest days as a student - as he did countless others, foreign and national - until his retirement and eventual death in Kerry, but more importantly, because O Dalaigh as judge and president was the single greatest champion the Constitution ever had, or is ever likely to have.
In his judgments he made sure that a firm line of demarcation was kept in regard to the three branches of government. Further, in a memorable passage - quoted in some court in the land nearly every week of the year - he said: "It was not the intention of the Constitution in guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the citizen that these rights should be set at naught or circumvented. The intention was that rights of substance were being assured to the individual and that the courts were the custodians of these rights. As a necessary corollary it follows that no one can with impunity set these rights at naught or circumvent them, and that the courts' powers in this regard are as ample as the defence of the Constitution requires. Anyone who sets himself such a course is guilty of contempt of the courts and is punishable accordingly." The State (Quinn) v. Ryan [1965] IR 70 at 117.
When, as president, he referred the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court, that produced the beneficial result that the court, while upholding the legislation, delivered a landmark judgment which is the cornerstone of our law of civil liberties.
Difficult and eccentric? This description is totally at variance with the impression he made on anyone who had contact with him either as a judge or as president and who knew him as a generous, warm and versatile human being who was interested in all aspects of life, in languages, especially the Irish language, the theatre, arts and culture. In support of this I would quote the opinions of some who came together to produce a tribute to him, Immediate Man.
This was published five years after his death, so that those who penned the words, though friends, had a chance to compose them free from the distress that may require undue praise to be heaped on a person at the time of his death.
First, his godson, Aidan Carl Mathews: "How may one best remember him? He was a jurist, a poet, a rider of horses, a scholar, a journalist, a liturgist, a lover driven to clearheaded gaiety and excited tenderness by a world he found to be festive, almost Ovidian in its plenitude. I can see him sitting among children on a swingseat in a red verandah, reading from a book of Japanese legends, a matador's hat perched on his head; and I see him, again among the young, pushing buttons on a pinball machine, with that casual intensity of his, late at night in a cafe bar on the main road out of Luxembourg.
"Pictures: Many of them, none blurred. In one, he is stepping from his State car in Kerry to make room during a rainstorm for a half-mad geriatric, a Johnny Fortycoats; and slipping off that evening to provide, from his own pocket, for a new dwelling, a helping hand, an electrical connection, running water."
Unusual perhaps, hardly eccentric, but rather the actions of a kind and decent man.
Next, the playwright, Tom Murphy: ". . . simultaneous with his rise from high office to the highest in the land, his generous personality became more manifest and accessible.
"When he became President in 1974 his personal attention to the Arts became more evident. He opened the new Project Arts Centre, he visited art exhibitions, he attended book launchings, his presence in theatres was frequent and regular. It was not unusual for him to take in two shows of an evening during the Dublin Theatre Festival.
"Paintings by contemporary Irish painters hung in Aras an Uachtarain. Others - a stack of them - lay waiting to be framed to take their places on the walls of his residence. People in all walks of the Arts wrote to him about their projects, problems, fund-raising and whatnot, and his response was constructive, caring and understanding."
And Siobhan McKenna: "Cearbhall was deeply involved with people and most accessible. He was very much at home with us actors as we were with him. He was a genuine and frequent theatre-goer and liked to discuss the play with us afterwards."
Brendan Smith told how, during a Dublin Theatre Festival, the President asked to go to Fossets Circus. He recounts: "At the interval, he expressed a desire to meet all the performers, both human and animal, after the show. Many tears of joy were shed that night under the Big Top and, later, in the caravan home of the Fosset family when the President joined them for tea and fruitcake. Mr Fossett's sole regret was that President O Dalaigh had insisted on paying for his seats!"
Dr FitzGerald writes that when the president came to address four of the institutions of the European Community in 1975, as regards the first three, he did not speak any English but agreed, at Dr FitzGerald's request, to include a few paragraphs in English for his address at the European Parliament "so as to avoid giving quite gratuitous offence to our British partners".
This seems to carry the implication that O Dalaigh was an Anglophobe with a dislike of the English language. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I recall, back in 1958, attending a student dinner at which the guest of honour was Dr A.H. Robertson, a Briton who was expert in the fledgling European institutions as well as on the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. O Dalaigh, who was then the junior judge on the Supreme Court, provided every encouragement to Dr Robertson in seeking to gain wider recognition, especially among his own people, for what was then largely unexplored territory.
They had a most cordial exchange of views on cultural matters touching their respective countries. While I bring this incident from the distant past, it was consonant with the regard he had at all times for our neighbours.
O Dalaigh's judgments composed in elegant English are, of course, replete with reference to wise English judgments. He did not favour a slavish following of any foreign precedent; but does anyone anymore?
Dr FitzGerald's account of the president's address to the European Parliament depicts him as being perhaps irritated at the unwelcome advice he had received about the use of English, and says that in his address to the Parliament "he departed from his multilingual script to explain how he had learnt French as a child from a book about a M. and Mme Perrichon and their dog. To the utter humiliation of the Irish delegation, and the dismissive amusement of the remainder of the audience, the dialogue between this couple, and their pet, was re-enacted verbatim from the rostrum, including repeated loud `woof-woofs' on the part of the dog."
I find it hard to credit that a man of such immense learning, culture and grace could have put on such a performance at the European Parliament.
Contemporary accounts, on the contrary, credit him with giving a perceptive, indeed prophetic, address to the Parliament as regards the need for it to have legislative powers truly to fulfil its functions as the representative institution of the communities.
And it is said that at various points in his address he switched languages - from French to English to German, to Italian, and back to French. His addresses to the four institutions all had a measure of wit. This was reciprocated, certainly, in the case of the court, who wished to indict him for having left the court!
Eileen O'Brien, writing in this newspaper, referred to the pride that she took in regard to the president's state visit to France earlier in the same year. She recounted: "One could feel great pride in knowing that the most cultured man in the company was our man, and that the most learned woman was our woman, Madame la presidente.'
However, if there is any credit to be attached to this account, then I suppose it is only fair to say that there is hardly a speaker in the world but who has suffered an anecdote to go awry at sometime or another.
In this connection, it is salutary to recall that on the evening before he delivered his Gettysburg address President Abraham Lincoln observed: "In my position it is somewhat important that I should not say any foolish things." A voice from the crowd said: "If you can help it." "It very often happens," Lincoln replied, "that the only way to help it is to say nothing at all."
While conceding that there can be no excuse for the mishandling of the Donegan insult that lead to Cearbhall O Dalaigh's resignation, Dr FitzGerald adds rather enigmatically "but some of the Government's unhappy experiences with this non-political President may help to explain why that matter was not dealt with more sensibly."
While no one wants to rake over these particular old coals, it is only right to say that a much fuller and, it may be, more accurate account of what led to the President's resignation is to be found in Dr FitzGerald's autobiography, All in a Life, at pp. 316-317. It is the fact that the president resigned, not upon the minister's speech, but after the Dail debate which took place some days later.
Whatever about the anecdote of the dog, two factual matters in the article fall to be corrected. First, O Dalaigh was not Chief Justice when invited to become president; he was a member of the European Court at Luxembourg. Second, it is not correct to state that after Cearbhall O Dalaigh's
resignation the national coalition nominated for election as an agreed candidate Dr Paddy Hillery. Dr Hillery was nominated on November 9th, 1976, by the then leader of the opposition, Mr Jack Lynch, together with all the members of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party. While the other parties did not contest Dr Hillery's election, that is not to say that they nominated him on the basis "that even a Fianna Fail politician was to be preferred to a non-politician as next President", or otherwise.
In conclusion, I think it fair to say that Cearbhall O Dalaigh, who resembled the first president, Douglas Hyde, so well in his love of the Irish language and culture, also brought, as he had promised, a community spirit to the office. He occupied the office for only 22 months, so that there is a danger that his considerable achievements, his humanitarian actions, his grace and his vision of a happy and united Irish people might be forgotten - as well as his regard for the diversity of people; at his inaugural address he had quoted Thoreau, whom he said was relevant to the modern world in several ways: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer; let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
This article is written by Mr Justice O'Flaherty exclusively on his own behalf.
It was held out of some editions on Friday morning for reasons of space.