Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Just Society for Ireland? 1964–19871980s: New Leader, New Party

A Just Society for Ireland? 1964–1987: 1980s: New Leader, New Party [Garret FitzGerald and Charles Haughey were the defining political figures of the 1980s. There’s was ‘a titanic conflict that dominated the political landscape of late twentieth century Ireland, much as the struggle between Gladstone and Disraeli had dominated British politics a hundred years before’.1 Their rivalry was consolidated by the new development of televised leaders’ debates at election time. In contrast to Haughey, FitzGerald became ‘Garret the Good’. Coined by his opponents and intended as a term of derision, the moniker stuck with him and was an important factor in his success. It became all the more fitting after Haughey’s corruption was later investigated and exposed by the McCracken and Moriarty Tribunals.2 When FitzGerald was asked if he was aware of the moment that he first had an ambition to become a politician, he replied that he was fifteen. Fr Roland Burke Savage, who ran the debating society at Belvedere College, had suggested that he should consider a career in politics. FitzGerald recalled being told to aim for the office of Taoiseach, though he admitted that in later life Burke Savage had no memory of that element of his advice: ‘perhaps I invented that part’.3 He joined Fine Gael, he claimed, to transform the party. ‘You don’t join a party because you agree with it … You join it because, through the party, you can influence change’. Support for Declan Costello’s efforts in 1964 had encouraged him that there was a window of opportunity to affect change in the party.4] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Just Society for Ireland? 1964–19871980s: New Leader, New Party

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-just-society-for-ireland-1964-1987-1980s-new-leader-new-party-ucBDZig6IS
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-43779-5
Pages
148 –161
DOI
10.1057/9781137022066_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Garret FitzGerald and Charles Haughey were the defining political figures of the 1980s. There’s was ‘a titanic conflict that dominated the political landscape of late twentieth century Ireland, much as the struggle between Gladstone and Disraeli had dominated British politics a hundred years before’.1 Their rivalry was consolidated by the new development of televised leaders’ debates at election time. In contrast to Haughey, FitzGerald became ‘Garret the Good’. Coined by his opponents and intended as a term of derision, the moniker stuck with him and was an important factor in his success. It became all the more fitting after Haughey’s corruption was later investigated and exposed by the McCracken and Moriarty Tribunals.2 When FitzGerald was asked if he was aware of the moment that he first had an ambition to become a politician, he replied that he was fifteen. Fr Roland Burke Savage, who ran the debating society at Belvedere College, had suggested that he should consider a career in politics. FitzGerald recalled being told to aim for the office of Taoiseach, though he admitted that in later life Burke Savage had no memory of that element of his advice: ‘perhaps I invented that part’.3 He joined Fine Gael, he claimed, to transform the party. ‘You don’t join a party because you agree with it … You join it because, through the party, you can influence change’. Support for Declan Costello’s efforts in 1964 had encouraged him that there was a window of opportunity to affect change in the party.4]

Published: Oct 20, 2015

Keywords: Foreign Affair; Female Candidate; Minority Government; National Coalition; Irish Time

There are no references for this article.