Who has been the best Taoiseach we ever had?

diomed · 22-04-2016 05:07PM

LiamoSail wrote: »

I do believe that Cowan inherited a poisoned chalice from Ahern, but having been Minister for Finance in the preceding years, he had a big role in the management of the economy

My guess is Bertie made the decisions that got the economy boomier.

K-9 · 22-04-2016 05:28PM

Jack Lynch

NoCrackHaving wrote: »

With the exception of keeping Ireland out of WWII (something which is massively understated as a positive) he was a fairly poor leader presiding over a disastrous trade war with Britain and creating a dull and economically stagnant country. The poverty of Ireland during Dev's reign was simply incredible and he has a large role to play in doing little to alleviate that. Also he did nothing to help the workers and cemented the control of the Catholic Church over Irish society. He was extremely conservative both economically and socially at a time when Ireland needed radical new approaches in politics.

All leaders in the 30's presided over terrible trade wars, like free trade now, it was the economic thinking of the time. Not sure we can blame DeV on that one.

Jawgap · 22-04-2016 06:02PM

toptom wrote: »

Eamon DeValera was our man of steel, We had a good orderly society which didn't start to crumble until after his death. People had respect for authority when he was alive,

Aside from the Economic War, the selling out of the population to the Catholic Church and his general isolationism that retarded the country's economic and cultural growth for several generations, he was a grand fellow

22-04-2016 07:55PM

Garrett Fitzgerald

Haugheys governments of the late 80s/early 90s did a great job of sorting out the economy and setting the foundations for the 90s when things started to go right in this country for once. His governments of the early 80s were the opposite though. My own guess is that he was the most intellectual person, along with Garret Fitzgerald, to have been Taoiseach. A flawed but interesting man.

whisky_galore · 25-04-2016 10:37AM

Jawgap wrote: »

Aside from the Economic War, the selling out of the population to the Catholic Church and his general isolationism that retarded the country's economic and cultural growth for several generations, he was a grand fellow

Oh let me see, which Irish governments in power kowtowed to the RCC?
Practically all of the them, pre and post-Dev.

The RCC had a 'special place' even before 1922...the British were quite happy to let them run their lovely accomodations for 'fallen women'..and guess what the Irish people had no problem with them either, a convenient dumping ground for family members who no longer fitted in with Catholic ethos.

Kotek Besar · 25-04-2016 10:41AM

Wasn't Oliver Cromwell a taoiseach of sorts? I'd vote for him. No messin.

Jawgap · 25-04-2016 10:44AM

whisky_galore wrote: »

Oh let me see, which Irish governments in power kowtowed to the RCC?
Practically all of the them, pre and post-Dev.

The RCC had a 'special place' even before 1922...the British were quite happy to let them run their lovely accomodations for 'fallen women'..and guess what the Irish people had no problem with them either, a convenient dumping ground for family members who no longer fitted in with Catholic ethos.

Indeed, but who invited McQuaid to contribute to writing the Constitution

Presumably at de Valera’s invitation, McQuaid worked prodigiously on drafting the constitution. He supplied de Valera with learned notes on theories of authority, the family, marriage, Catholic social principles, private property and church–state relations.

In the initial stages much of the material submitted was in the form of typed quotations from papal encyclicals. But as the drafting progressed, McQuaid was involved in the actual formulation of the articles dealing with personal rights, the family, education, private property, religion and directive principles of social policy (Articles 40–45 in the final draft).

On the day that the constitution came into force, 29 December 1937, McQuaid wrote to de Valera: ‘This morning again I said Mass for you at dawn, on the eventful day. I am reminded all day of the text in the New Testament: “Many have desired to see what we see and have not seen”.’

From 'The Catholic Church and the writing of the 1937 constitution'

whisky_galore · 25-04-2016 10:47AM

Jawgap wrote: »

Indeed, but who invited McQuaid to contribute to writing the Constitution

From 'The Catholic Church and the writing of the 1937 constitution'

Seriously, would you think any other leader of the time would have acted differently?
To rebuke the RCC and tell it to mind its own business in 1937 would have been highly controversial and courting trouble. The electorate would not have liked it, that's for sure.

Jawgap · 25-04-2016 10:55AM

whisky_galore wrote: »

Seriously, would you think any other leader of the time would have acted differently?
To rebuke the RCC and tell it to mind its own business in 1937 would have been highly controversial and courting trouble.

Frankly, yes. So maybe Dev avoided the controversy, but he certainly brought trouble, the legacy issues of which we're still dealing with.

......the fact he lacked the bottle to do what was right, instead of what was expedient is another reason to relegate him to the lower tier of Taoisigh.

Chips Lovell · 25-04-2016 11:00AM

Jaysus, what did poor old Liam Cosgrave do? Even Haughey and Biffo got a few votes.

aidan24326 · 25-04-2016 11:38AM

Garrett Fitzgerald

whisky_galore wrote: »

Seriously, would you think any other leader of the time would have acted differently?
To rebuke the RCC and tell it to mind its own business in 1937 would have been highly controversial and courting trouble. The electorate would not have liked it, that's for sure.

He couldn't completely sideline the RCC of course, not in those days, but he didn't have to kowtow to them to quite the extent that he did either. He may as well have handed them the keys to Leinster House. He was terribly conservative even for the times.

25-04-2016 11:51AM

John A. Costello

wrote:

With the exception of keeping Ireland out of WWII (something which is massively understated as a positive) he was a fairly poor leader presiding over a disastrous trade war with Britain and creating a dull and economically stagnant country. The poverty of Ireland during Dev's reign was simply incredible and he has a large role to play in doing little to alleviate that. Also he did nothing to help the workers and cemented the control of the Catholic Church over Irish society. He was extremely conservative both economically and socially at a time when Ireland needed radical new approaches in politics.

This is just more of the same old anti-Dev prejudices - "remember the economic war!" cry the scions of the big Fine Gael-supporting beef farmers of the 1930s. There are, quite frankly, ineffably more important things to remember than the fate of that mé féiner caste and their "Christian" platitudes and sanctimonious hypocrisy having stuffed themselves at the trough of the CnaG/FG government 1922-32, and for the previous 60 or 80 years under British rule.

When Dev took over in 1932 there was utterly incredible poverty, a poverty which was strengthened by the ten years of solidly, and infamously, rightwing CnaG/Fine Gael government, 1922-1932. We had, as Peader O'Donnell highlighted in his play Adrigoole (1929), real-life stories of Irish families dying of starvation under that CnaG government. De Valera, in actual historical fact, made enormously admirable inroads on this poverty. For instance, between the years 1932 and 1942 Éamon de Valera's government built 132,000 houses for Ireland's poor. Re-read that. How many social houses did Fine Gael (or indeed Fianna Fáil between 2002-2011) build between 2011-2016?

De Valera made these historic social reforms at a time when not only was the state mired in huge poverty but at a time of unprecedented international tension, a time when senior Fine Gael figures (including Fine Gael's first leader) were more than dabbling with fascist and authoritarian regimes.

From 1938 onwards, when he and Fianna Fáil became the establishment, I wouldn't have too much respect for De Valera, but it's nothing other than old-fashioned Anglo prejudice and bitterness from the privileged old order to deny the social radicalism and reform of Fianna Fáil between 1932 and 1938. That government was a breath of fresh air on the staid anglocentic, ineffably class-ridden Ireland - intellectually, culturally, socially and economically. No single government in the history of this state has advanced our independence or social justice as much as that Fianna Fáil government, 1932-1938, did. That Fianna Fáil received the support of a majority of the electorate - not merely a majority of the Dáil seats - in the 1938 general election confirms the high respect in which that Fianna Fáil government was held.

But, why look at history in the context of its own time when people can just latch onto whatever is fashionable today.

K-9 · 25-04-2016 02:28PM

Jack Lynch

Nah, the handed down historical wisdom is DeV is bad.

Getting the Treaty Ports back was a massive achievement, we'd have been involved in the war whether we liked it or not, without them.

Dyr · 25-04-2016 02:38PM

But...But...Dancing at the crossroads..etc.

Jawgap · 25-04-2016 02:39PM

K-9 wrote: »

Nah, the handed down historical wisdom is DeV is bad.

Getting the Treaty Ports back was a massive achievement, we'd have been involved in the war whether we liked it or not, without them.

However, if Ireland escaped the ravages of war, it also missed out on the post-war boom that swept up virtually every other country in the western world. While average growth rate in Europe was up to 8%, in Ireland in the 1950s it was only 1% per year.

Ireland’s population fell to 2.81 million as over 40,000 people emigrated every year. The polices that had prevailed since the 1930s – balancing the books, allied with a policy of protecting and subsidising Irish industry, appeared to be failing.

Dev's economic legacy?

According to Sean Lemass, who took over as Taoiseach in 1959, there was a possibility of an imminent failure, not only of Irish economic policy, but of the Irish state itself. Something, “has got to be done now…If we fail everything else goes with it and all the hopes of the past will have been falsified”.

K-9 · 25-04-2016 02:44PM

Jack Lynch

Jawgap wrote: »

Dev's economic legacy?

Well yeah, he should have went much earlier, early 50's probably. Doesn't mean he didn't do some good things before that.

Jawgap · 25-04-2016 02:48PM

K-9 wrote: »

Well yeah, he should have went much earlier, early 50's probably. Doesn't mean he didn't do some good things before that.

I think the point made in the article is that thanks to policies dating back to the 30s the country was teetering on the edge. Yes, this covered Costello's tenures as Taoiseach, but the bulk of the period in question was Dev's time at the helm.

And yes, we had low levels of borrowing but at what cost?

bkqwerty · 25-04-2016 03:42PM

Only old enough to remember Bertie, Brian and Enda. Enda Kenny is by far and away the best out of those three. Hard to judge historically when we weren't around at the time but based on all I've read etc it seems like Lemass was a good Taoiseach who had a very positive impact on the country. Garrett Fitzgerald seemed like a man of great integrity too.

25-04-2016 03:51PM

bkqwerty wrote: »

Garrett Fitzgerald seemed like a man of great integrity too.

Lame leader though. Country was an economic wasteland while he was mumbling about social reform...not that he actually achieved much on that front either, and we ended up with the sight of him voting against his own abortion referendum. Things got so bad In Tua Nua, Auto da Fe and co staged a concert to generate employement!

It took Haughey and Mac the Knife to sort out the mess.

He also was involved in that business where a Bank forgave a rather large debt in a transaction where his son ended up with the family home. So not sure the integrity was beyond all reproach.

whisky_galore · 25-04-2016 03:56PM

Bambi wrote: »

But...But...Dancing at the crossroads..etc.

A misquote from a radio address in 1943 that gets misquoted with tiresome regularity.

25-04-2016 06:00PM

John A. Costello

K-9 wrote: »

Nah, the handed down historical wisdom is DeV is bad.

Whatever "handed down historical wisdom" means, the idea that "Dev is bad" must surely belong to some comic book understanding of history. Outside the pages of TPC no serious historian is foolish enough to distil his 50-year career into the words "Dev is bad". As I've mentioned, De Valera did much good in his first period in office, 1932-1938, and was by any stretch a far more socially advanced leader in those years than anything produced by the 1922-1932 government. Most professional historians can, and do, distinguish between positive and negative periods in his career. There is also general agreement that he stood up to the RCC on important things, such as resisting their demand for Ireland to follow England and be backward enough to have a state religion. The "special position" of the RCC was a clear defeat for McQuaid, even though this would be news to the Dev haters. Had Fine Gael's John A. "I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong." Costello, for instance, been Taoiseach in 1937 the role of the RCC would have been much more powerful.

This podcast from Diarmaid Ferriter will enlighten people who have a genuine interest in history, as opposed to just seeking confirmation bias.

25-04-2016 07:02PM

Deleted User wrote: »

There is also general agreement that he stood up to the RCC on important things, such as resisting their demand for Ireland to follow England and be backward enough to have a state religion. The "special position" of the RCC was a clear defeat for McQuaid, even though this would be news to the Dev haters. Had Fine Gael's John A. "I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong." Costello, for instance, been Taoiseach in 1937 the role of the RCC would have been much more powerful.

It is also significant that Costello's Governmeng capitulated to McQuaid on the Mother and Child Scheme, and it took Dev and FF to subsequently implement it in the face of the same opponent.

Jawgap · 25-04-2016 07:55PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Whatever "handed down historical wisdom" means, the idea that "Dev is bad" must surely belong to some comic book understanding of history. Outside the pages of TPC no serious historian is foolish enough to distil his 50-year career into the words "Dev is bad". As I've mentioned, De Valera did much good in his first period in office, 1932-1938, and was by any stretch a far more socially advanced leader in those years than anything produced by the 1922-1932 government. Most professional historians can, and do, distinguish between positive and negative periods in his career. There is also general agreement that he stood up to the RCC on important things, such as resisting their demand for Ireland to follow England and be backward enough to have a state religion. The "special position" of the RCC was a clear defeat for McQuaid, even though this would be news to the Dev haters. Had Fine Gael's John A. "I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong." Costello, for instance, been Taoiseach in 1937 the role of the RCC would have been much more powerful.

This podcast from Diarmaid Ferriter will enlighten people who have a genuine interest in history, as opposed to just seeking confirmation bias.

I don't believe anyone is saying that Dev was objectively a bad person, just a comparatively bad Taoiseach. Sure, feel free to throw the word 'bias' around, but, as certain historians are wont to say - "it's all relative"

whisky_galore · 26-04-2016 08:38AM

Jawgap wrote: »

I don't believe anyone is saying that Dev was objectively a bad person, just a comparatively bad Taoiseach. Sure, feel free to throw the word 'bias' around, but, as certain historians are wont to say - "it's all relative"

The movie portrayal of Dev as the obvious bad guy in 'Michael Collins' is what most people under a certain age are familiar with and no doubt are influenced by.

FortySeven · 26-04-2016 08:45AM

Why can't I vote for the one we have now? Clearly better than all the rest put together.

Gender fluid.
Not corrupt.
Doesn't say anything.
Doesn't faf with anything.
Not costing us a fortune.
Doesn't require anything.
Hasn't upset anybody.

They're great!

Jawgap · 26-04-2016 08:46AM

whisky_galore wrote: »

The movie portrayal of Dev as the obvious bad guy in 'Michael Collins' is what most people under a certain age are familiar with and no doubt are influenced by.

'Michael Collins' was not much of a film for a whole variety of reasons too long to list here.

Thankfully I'm old enough to have formed my opinion of Dev based on the constitutional and economic history of the country.

HalloweenJack · 26-04-2016 10:26AM

Jack Lynch

From what I read about him, and from what older generations have told me, I'd vote for Lemass. His stint seems to have had the most positive effect on the country, taking within in the context of Irish society in the 60s.

I'm sure there was lots going on while he was in charge that I don't approve of in the slightest but his overall contribution seemed to be far more positive to the development of the country than that of other taoisigh.

26-04-2016 11:36AM

Jack Lynch

[Deleted User] wrote: »

3 picked John Bruton.

John Bruton!

Man you'd wanna be dyed in the wool FG to think of him.

Did he do a whole wrong as leader though? Granted he's not particularly likeable, and bit of a bigmouth these days, but he wasn't corrupt and/or reckless and/or incompetent like a lot of other Taoisigh.

purplepanda · 26-04-2016 12:59PM

Jack Lynch

Michael Collins was greater man than the lot of them & started the process of building a new democratic state. Not to mention his prominent role in the independence movement.

Collins should have been retrospectively declared Taoiseach just as WT Cosgrave was by De Valera's 1937 Government constitution.

In view of the historical anniversaries approaching over the few years this is something that should be rectified as a tribute to Collins. He should be declared as the first Taoiseach.

26-04-2016 01:19PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Did he do a whole wrong as leader though? Granted he's not particularly likeable, and bit of a bigmouth these days, but he wasn't corrupt and/or reckless and/or incompetent like a lot of other Taoisigh.

He was very incompetent when it came to NI, the IRA ceasefire broke down during his time and they recommenced the bombing campaign. He did say that he was "sick of answering questions about the f****** peace process" in one memorable slip up. He may not have been personally corrupt but of course his Government was involved in the Esat scandal.

Who has been the best Taoiseach we ever had?

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