WT Cosgrave’s achievements may have parallels with the recovery of national sovereignty in aftermath of banking collapse

Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the anniversary of the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the appointment of WT Cosgrave as president of the executive council – a post that was subsequently renamed “taoiseach”.

Despite some limitations imposed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, his government ruled a political entity that soon consolidated the new State’s independence. It began the process of undoing the massive social and economic damage caused by the Civil War. (These achievements may have some parallels with the recent recovery of national sovereignty in the aftermath of the 2008 banking collapse. In both cases, governments struggled heroically to restore the country to “normality”.)

Cosgrave was not an accidental leader, but he was not personally ambitious and his elevation would have seemed improbable only a year or two earlier. Other possible heads of government were removed by death (some of the Easter Week rebels, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins) or by miscalculation (Éamon de Valera). His early career had been in local administration and he was a prominent Sinn Féin member of Dublin Corporation. But he was swept along by the militarisation of Irish life after 1912 – he joined the Irish Volunteers, he fought in the Easter Rising, and he was sentenced to death. He was reprieved, and his subsequent life sentence lasted for only a year. For the rest of his career, he confined himself to peaceful, political measures, although his background enabled him to represent both the military and the political traditions in Irish nationalism. He was a highly successful minister in the “underground” Dáil government of 1919-1921. His was the decisive “swing” vote when the Irish cabinet voted in favour of the treaty. He was the unanimous choice of his colleagues to succeed Michael Collins.

One of his government’s principal achievements was to consolidate civilian control over the military, first by defeating the republicans in the Civil War and then (in murky and controversial circumstances) by surviving the army mutiny of 1924. He was uncompromising in his conduct of the war and in his insistence that the republicans should lay down their arms. But he was magnanimous once peace had been restored, and he ensured that the republican opposition was forced to play a role in Irish public life – despite the probability that it would soon come to power as the result of a general election.

Lasting patterns

Cosgrave and his ministers established patterns of political life and public administration that endured in their broad outlines over many decades – and, in many respects, continue to the present. He was a chairman not a chief; for example, he was prepared to be outvoted in cabinet. He delegated to ministers and to civil servants whom he trusted, and he gave loyal support to his colleagues (eg, to Patrick McGilligan’s direction of the Shannon electrification scheme). Perhaps his firm but unobtrusive leadership was what the country needed after years of violence and disruption.

He was preoccupied with what he saw as the national interest and he opposed localism, jobbery and nepotism. He believed in centralised government, and he even abolished Dublin Corporation – where his own career had begun. He was a meritocrat who believed in an apolitical bureaucracy, and among his administration’s many important achievements was the establishment of the Civil Service Commission. Like other national leaders of the time, he believed in financial responsibility and in balanced budgets. Although a devout Catholic, he was prepared (like later Irish leaders such as Garret FitzGerald and Enda Kenny) to challenge the power of the church; he won some of the battles that followed and lost others.

Some of his defeats were pre-ordained. In the circumstances of the 1920s, there was no possibility that the Free State would acquire the large areas of Northern Ireland whose population wanted to escape from unionist rule. The “boundary” settlement secured financial gains for the South, but northern nationalists felt abandoned.

Other failures were self-inflicted – in particular the indifference, if not disdain, with which the first Irish government regarded public opinion. It despised populism and believed firmly that it should give the people what was good for them, rather than what they wanted. It appealed to their heads and not to their hearts. Many voters grew tired of rulers whom they saw as aloof and self-righteous. Nonetheless Cosgrave remained in office for nearly 10 years, and his was one of the longest-lasting democratic administrations in Europe between the wars.

Transfer of power

Even without external pressures Cumann na nGaedheal would probably have been replaced in the early 1930s, but – like other governments throughout the world – it was swept away by the impact of the Great Depression. The peaceful transfer of power from the victors to the vanquished of the Civil War has rightly been seen as the consolidation of Irish democracy and as a transition that brought credit to both sides. Although he did not know it, at the age of 51 Cosgrave’s days in power were over and he faced decades of opposition and retirement.

The Free State survived for another five years under de Valera’s management until it was abolished with the introduction of a new constitution in 1937. Most of the achievements of the Cosgrave administration were maintained, although Fianna Fáil replaced its policy of co-operation with Britain by one of confrontation – particularly during the economic war. However, by the 1940s, a broad consensus was shared by most elements in Irish society.

Despite numerous modifications over the decades, the system that was established on December 6th, 1922, has proved to be resilient and enduring.

Dr Michael Laffan is author of Judging WT Cosgrave, published by the Royal Irish Academy in October. He is emeritus professor of history in UCD, where he has taught for over three decades