Seán Loftus:SEÁN DUBLIN Bay Rockall Loftus, who has died aged 82, was one of Ireland's best-known politicians in the 1970s and 1980s.
A Dublin city councillor for 25 years, he became the State’s highest-polling councillor in 1979 and, fighting a European election on a shoestring, amassed an incredible 21,000 first-preference votes. He was elected lord mayor in 1995.
Catholic social teaching inspired him to enter politics. “The social encyclicals apply to all humanity, not just to Catholics,” he said. A secular state was anathema to him and he strongly opposed the removal from the Constitution of Article 44, which guaranteed the special position of the Catholic Church.
Prior to the removal of the constitutional ban on divorce in 1995, he stated his belief that it “should be available to residents of the North in a federal Ireland” and that “anyone from the South wanting a divorce could establish residency there”. He feared that liberal family planning laws would lead to “total promiscuity”.
A superb self-publicist, he stood aloof from clientelistic politics and did not operate a constituency clinic. He often annoyed city council colleagues by referring constituents with problems relating to housing, street lighting and litter to other councillors while he devoted his energies to more high-profile campaigns.
“Nobody votes for Loftus because they owe him a favour,” Fintan O’Toole wrote in 1982. “Voters recognise the aura of holy obsession and they admire it.”
A fellow councillor, Kevin Byrne, said that if there were such a thing as a saint-politician, it would be Loftus.
Yet he was seen in some quarters as a loose cannon. The Friends of Medieval Dublin sought to exclude him from their occupation of Wood Quay, relenting only when he threatened to summon the press to photograph him climbing over the wall.
Born in Dublin on November 26th, 1927, he was the eldest of the seven children of Dr JJ Loftus and his wife Margaret. Educated at Coláiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, and the Catholic University School, he studied medicine, at his father’s behest, at University College Dublin. Two years into the course he quit and in 1946, he emigrated to England.
He worked on various building sites, most notably the Shell Oil headquarters on London’s South Bank. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, he returned to Dublin for medical treatment. Back in England after 18 months, he found employment in Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, where a nuclear power plant was being built.
Opting for a career in politics, he decided that the law would provide a suitable launching pad. He enrolled at the King’s Inns, Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1958. He postponed the launch of his political career to spend the next three years travelling the United States as a roving lecturer on Irish affairs. He was a popular speaker.
“At that time Ireland was supporting discussions on the admission of Red China to the UN and that was doing us a lot of damage in the United States. I took the line that we should support America in the UN.”
In Washington, he met Eduaro Frei, a future president of Chile, who sparked his interest in Christian Democracy. Frei convinced Loftus that Ireland could be a model of Christian social principles in practice. On his return to Ireland in 1961, he founded the Christian Democrat movement.
He practised as a barrister for five years before taking up a job as lecturer in planning law at the College of Technology, Bolton Street. However, his legal expertise could not help him overcome the obstacles to registering the Christian Democrats as a political party. He then changed his name by deed poll, becoming Seán D Christian Democrat Dublin Bay Loftus.
He dropped “Christian Democrat” to stand as a Community candidate in the 1974 local elections, and eventually became Seán Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus.
Elected to Dublin City Council, he came close to winning a Dáil seat in the 1977 general election.
His opposition to the proposed Dublin Bay oil refinery, along with his role in the Wood Quay protests, raised his public profile. He attracted further publicity by championing Ireland’s right to jurisdiction over Rockall, an isolated islet in the north Atlantic, the status of which is disputed by the United Kingdom, Denmark and Iceland.
The Wolfe Tones popularised the issue with their recording of Rock On, Rockall.
Substantial transfers from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour voters ensured his election to the Dáil in 1981, but his parliamentary career lasted only seven months. By voting against the budget in 1982, he helped to bring down the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government and he lost his seat in the subsequent election. He retired as a councillor in 1999.
His wife Una (née Fitzsimons), son Ruairí and daughters Muireann and Fiona survive him.
Seán Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus: born November 26th, 1927; died July 10th, 2010.