From Leader in Crisis to Leader in Government

Abstract

In 1969, Nusight seriously underestimated Garret FitzGerald. He was described as being ‘totally devoid of political savvy or “gut” [and] wouldn’t know how to go about becoming leader’.¹ FitzGerald, however, had set himself that task. ‘For that to happen’, Conor Cruise O’Brien suggested, ‘the skids had to be greased under Liam Cosgrave, and they were’. Cosgrave himself contributed.² If Liam Cosgrave had a major decision to make, he would ask himself what his father would have done.³ Cumann na nGaedheal — Fine Gael’s antecedent led by W. T. Cosgrave — was born in the midst of the Civil War and, as the government party, was charged with the task of building the new state. Facing down challenges from both within and outside the political system, it presented itself as the party of law and order. It was a legacy of which Liam Cosgrave was proud and one on which he placed a great premium. Speaking at the final rally for the 1969 election, he told his audience ‘it is well to remember that the institutions of this State were set up by this party, and defended by this party before Fianna Fáil ever was heard of’.⁴ Cosgrave saw himself in the same ‘defender of the state’ mould as his father. Such was his commitment that he risked his leadership of Fine Gael to support Fianna Fáil’s emergency security legislation in late 1972. Had bombs, planted by Loyalist extremists, not exploded in Dublin, Cosgrave may well have become the first Fine Gael leader to be ousted by the party.