An Taoiseach: The Irish Prime Minister

West European Politics

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 1991, Pages 133-162

  O'Leary, Brendan ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84933484659     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: 17439655     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389108424849     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. J.A. Murphy, ‘The Achievement of Éamon de Valera’ in J.P. O’Carroll and J.A. Murphy, De Valera and His Times (Cork: University Press, 1983), p.13.
2. ‘The Blueshirts are frequently described as fascists. They were not. Fascism was far too intellectually demanding for the bulk of the Blueshirts’–J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912-85: Politics and Society (Cambridge: University Press, 1989), p.181.
3. See B. O’Leary and J. Peterson, ‘Further Europeanization and Realignment: The Irish General Election, June 1989.’, West European Politics Vol.13, No.1 (1990), 124–36, and B. Farrell, ‘Forming the Government’ in Michael Gallagher and Richard Sinnott (eds.), How Ireland Voted (Galway: PSAI Press, 1990), pp. 179–91.
4. B. Farrell, Chairman or Chief? The Role of Taoiseach in Irish Government (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1971).
5. B. Farrell, Sean Lemass (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1983).
6. B. Chubb, Cabinet Government in Ireland (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1974).
7. S. O’Byrnes, Hiding behind a Face: Fine Gael under FitzGerald (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1980) and R. Smith, Garret: The Enigma (Dublin: Aherlow Publications, 1985).
8. N. Browne, Against the Tide (Dublin, 1986) and G. Hussey, At the Cutting Edge: Cabinet Diaries 1982–1987 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1990) - both of whom were single-term ministers. Slight publications by J. J. Walsh and K. Boland cannot be counted as memoirs.
9. Interview with Dr. FitzGerald, Dublin, 14 June 1989.
10. Splendid muck-raking can be found in J. Joyce and P. Murtagh's The Boss: Charles J. Haughey in Government (Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1983); and dreadful hagiography in J. M: Feehan's Operation Brogue: A Study of the Vilification of Charles Haughey (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1984) and his The Statesman: A Study of the Role of Charles Haughey in the Ireland of the Future (Cork: Mercier Press, 1985). A more discriminating study can be found in T. Ryle Dwyer's Charlie: The Political Biography of Charles J. Haughey (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1987), and an enormous compendium of the subject's output is available In M. Mansergh (ed.), The Spirit of the Nation: the Speeches and Statements of Charles J. Haughey (1957–1986) (Cork: Mercier Press, 1986).
11. B. Farrell, ‘Ireland. The Irish Cabinet System: More British than the British Themselves’, in Jean Blondel and F. Muller-Rommel (eds.), Cabinets in Western Europe (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp.33–46.
12. Farrell, Chairman or Chief?
13. Seán MacBride, former IRA Chief of Staff, and later Minister believed that most high-ranking civil servants were ‘British secret service agents’ (R. Fanning, Independent Ireland (Dublin: Helicon 19xx), p.166.
14. Interview with Brian Lenihan, Tánaiste, 18 October 1989.
15. See Seán Lemass, ‘Lemass on Government’, Leargas, No.12 (1968).
16. See M. O. Muimhneachain, ‘The Functions of the Department of the Taoiseach’, Administration, Vol.7, No.4 (1959), 277–93.
17. Farrell's survey of five Taoisigh concludes that they behaved more as chairmen than as chiefs (1971, op. cit. pp.82–6). However, he has since qualified his judgement (1988, op. cit., p.45).
18. Dail Debates, 14 November 1937, col.348.
19. Farrell, Chairman or Chief, op. cit. p.39.
20. Ibid. p.30.
21. Chubb, Cabinet Government in Ireland, p.49.
22. Hussey, At the Cutting Edge p.6.
23. D. Walsh, The Party: Inside Fianna Fáil (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1986), p.52.
24. Interview with Dr FitzGerald, 14 June 1989.
25. Cited in D. Gwynn Morgan, Constitutional Law of Ireland: The Law of the Executive, Legislature and Judicature (Dublin: The Round Hall Press, 1985), p.58.
26. I draw on Constitution of Saorstat Eireann (Dublin: Government Publications), Bun- reacht na hÉ ireann (Dublin: Government Publications), J. Casey, Constitutional Law in Ireland (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1987, pp. 139–154, B. Doolan, Constitutional Law and Constitutional Rights in Ireland (Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1988), pp.86–96, J.M. Kelly, The Irish Constitution (Dublin: Jurist Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 127–56, M. Forde Constitutional Law of Ireland (Cork: Mercier Press, 1987), pp. 129–32, and Morgan 1985 op. cit. pp.54–63.
27. B. Farrell, The Founding of Dáil Eireann: Parliament and Nation Building (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1971), p.68.
28. See M. Gallagher, ‘The Presidency of the Republic of Ireland: Implications of the ‘Donegan Affair’, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol.30, No.4 (1977), 375–84.
29. B. Chubb, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London: Longman, 1982), p.200.
30. B. Farrell, ‘The Constitution and the Institutions of Government: Constitutional Theory and Political Practice’, in F. Litton (ed.), The Constitution of Ireland, 1937–87, special issue of Administration, Vol.35, No.4 (1937), p.163.
31. J.M. Kelly, (with G. W. Hogan and G. Whyte) ‘Supplement’ to the The Irish Constitution, 2nd ed. (Dublin: Jurist Publishing Co. 1987).
32. See inter alia Casey, op. cit., pp. 179–85; M. Gallagher, ‘The Single European Act Referendum’, Irish Political Studies 3 (1988), 77-82; G. Hogan, ‘Tenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1987’ ICLSA, No.1, pp.3–6; and Kelly et al., ‘Supplement’, pp.35–43.
33. Chubb, Government and Politics, p.202.
34. Lee, Ireland 1912–85, pp.390, 399, 402, 406 and passim.
35. Jack Lynch, ‘My Life and Times’, Magill, 1979,3,2, p.40 (cited in Lee, op. cit. p.388).
36. Conor Cruise O’Brien (cited in Walsh, The Party inside Fianna Fail, p.100).
37. Le Monde recently portrayed Haughey as a ‘flamboyant adventurer’, ‘like Richard Nixon⋯ a survival artist’, whose three great passions are ‘politics, women and horses.’ The Irish Times, 10 Feb. 1990.
38. Joyce and Murtagh, The Boss, pp.68–9. In fact Haughey had vigorously repressed the IRA as a Justice minister.
39. T. Lyne, ‘The Progressive Democrats’, Irish Political Studies, 2 (1987) pp.107–114.
40. W. O’Brien, ‘Garret FitzGerald and the Fine Gael Party’ in J. Dooge (ed.), Ireland in the Contemporary World: Essays in Honour of Garret FitzGerald (Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1986), pp.37–42.
41. Major exceptions are R. Fisk's study of de Valera's management of Irish neutrality in the Second World War (In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality (London: André Deutsch, 1983)), and R. Fanning's studies of the Irish government's decisions not to join NATO and its application for UN membership (see Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol.2, No.2 (1986), pp.35–62). The former study suggests that key ministers, notably Aiken, affected de Valera's thinking.
42. J. Bowman, De Valera and the Ulster Question, 1917–73 (Oxford: University Press, 1982), p.6.
43. N. Hardiman, Pay, Politics and Economic Performance in Ireland 1970–87 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
44. Fanning's history of the Ministry of Finance does not enable us to assess its contemporary power: The Irish Department of Finance, 1922–58 (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1978).
45. P. Dunleavy and R.A.W. Rhodes, ‘Core Executive Studies in Britain’, Public Administration Vol.68, No.1 (1990), pp.3–28.
46. G.W. Jones, ‘Development of the Cabinet’ in W. Thornhill (ed.), The Modernization of British Government (London: Pitman, 1975).
47. J. Dunne, ‘The Politics of Institutional Reform in Ireland: Lessons of the 1982–87 Government’, Irish Political Studies, 4, pp.1–20.
48. Interview with Dr FitzGerald, 14 June 1989.
49. G. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge: University Press, 1976), pp.192–201.
50. P. Mair, The Changing Irish Party System (London: Frances Pinter, 1987), pp.96–7.
51. A. Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (Cambridge: University Press, 1988).