The death of Joe Sheridan on September 30th brought to mind many memories of a good man. As a politician he would have been the last to lay claim to being an outstanding orator and he did not aspire to senior office. He knew his strengths and weaknesses and applied those qualities with tremendous success.
Politically, he was street-wise, with his feet firmly on the ground, and he spoke the language of the common man. He had a natural gift for making friends and had few enemies.
As a Fine Gael activist in the 1950s I got to know Senator Joe Sheridan by reputation and used to meet him at Ard Fheisanna in the Mansion House, when I can recall platform speakers such as General Sean MacEoin inviting the few dozen delegates in the Round Room to come to the front seats to get the Ard Fheis started. Little did I know then that Joe Sheridan and I would be elected to Dail Eireann together on October 4th 1961 and would become close friends until he retired in 1981.
He was the most of a generation older than me and I looked upon him as my senior, so I was charmed when he called me by my first name during our first casual meeting along the corridors in Leinster House. I knew he had difficulties with the Fine Gael party and was now an Independent TD, and as we walked near the Fine Gael party rooms I jovially invited him to come in. We stopped, he put his hand on my shoulder and said: "I have left the party, but I am still Fine Gael. Maybe some time I'll accept your invitation, but not today."
I was to remember those words a couple of years later during great excitement in the Dail soon after the Dublin North East by-election. Fianna Fail was in office with the support of two Independent TDs and had suffered a serious defeat when Paddy Belton won a by-election in the Dublin Constituency. The main issue in the election was the infamous Turnover Tax and one of the Independents withdrew his support, leaving the Lemass government with a headcount problem.
Pa O'Donnell, a charismatic TD from Donegal with whom I had a father-son relationship, was a close personal friend of Joe Sheridan. He reacted angrily when I mentioned that there was a rumour that Joe Sheridan was going to vote for the Fianna Fail government. I defended myself by saying, "I am only telling you what the rumour is - and the rumour was right." I looked across to the "Yes" vote barrier and witnessed Neil Blaney coaxing Joe Sheridan past the tellers, actually holding the cuff of Joe Sheridan's jacket. It is something I will never forget. That is how the Lemass government stayed in power on that historic vote.
Later that night I left Joe to his hotel in Westland Row. During the short journey, and while sitting in my car outside the hotel, he became quite emotional and I remember him saying with tears in his eyes: "I am a Blueshirt and I will die a Blueshirt." He was finding it difficult to come to terms with voting against what he considered his tradition but kept repeating that he was elected by the people of Longford/West meath to represent them and do his best for them. He obviously found it quite hard to come down on one side or the other and my memoryof him walking very slowly through the division lobby being coaxed by Neil Blaney remains an indelible image in my mind.
It must be acknowledged that putting the interests of his constituents above his personal loyalties was the right one because he topped the poll in the subsequent general election and held his seat until he retired in 1981. As I walked into the Grosvenor Hotel with him on that night a group of Fine Gael deputies were in heated discussion. Paddy Belton, the victorious by-election candidate of a few weeks earlier, was not bashful in addressing Gerry Sweetman, the Fine Gael Party Whip and a man I greatly admired, who would never ask any TD to do something he was not prepared to do himself. He was, without doubt, one of the most talented and capable TDs I had the privilege to serve with, but he was arrogant and very unforgiving.
"He was Fine Gael's strong man," I could hear Paddy Belton say to Sweetman as Joe Sheridan passed the group. "There goes the man who could have given us power. We all know he wanted to vote Fine Gael, but you, Sweetman, are so damn proud that you'd rather be in Opposition than humble yourself to work out a deal with a decent man who broke a Party rule." The occasion was historic for another reason: on the following day President John F. Kennedy arrived in Dublin. It would have even been more historic if he had arrived in a State that had no Government.
Joe Sheridan had a strong will and a big heart and the large turnout at his funeral was testament to the esteem in which he was held in his native Longford/Westmeath. As one stranger in working clothes who recognised me said, standing on the Cathedral steps: "You knew him well but I only met him once when I approached him about a simple matter. I have travelled a long way this evening to be at his funeral because I just could not forget him."
He was just a working man but he spoke for a lot of people. May he rest in peace.
P.H.