Thirty years ago, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh resigned as President of Ireland, following an attack on him by the defence minister, Paddy Donegan. An examination of Ó Dálaigh's private papers reveals him as a troubled man, writes Jim Duffy
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was a complex man: intellectually brilliant, an extraordinary jurist. Yet for someone who had sat around de Valera's cabinet table as attorney general, he was chronically politically naive. As chief justice he had picketed a film, praised Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and even demanded that taoiseach Jack Lynch dismiss a minister. One frustrated 1960s Fianna Fáil justice minister had labelled chief justice Ó Dálaigh a "crank".
Ó Dálaigh became president in 1974. Almost immediately, his political naivete caused problems. His speech to the European Parliament mortified the Irish delegation - telling MEPs that the only thing he had ever been elected to was the auditorship of a UCD debating society. He then told a "humorous" story about a man, a woman and a dog, allegedly along with "woof woof" sounds.
During the Herrema siege, the president drafted a letter to the taoiseach offering himself as a substitute hostage for Dr Herrema, but never sent it.
In October 1976, fearing the government would not advise him to commute the death sentence of Marie Murray for the murder of Garda Michael Reynolds, he sought legal advice on whether he could, at his own discretion, commute the sentences. The advice he received from Donal Barrington and Roderick O'Hanlon (later judges) was "no".
In August 1976, the IRA's assassination of the new British ambassador to Ireland, Sir Christopher Ewart Biggs, led to the declaration of a new national emergency. The government introduced an Emergency Powers Bill, which, as emergency legislation would be protected, once enacted, from constitutional challenge by citizens.
President Ó Dálaigh however drew a distinction between an Act (a Bill signed into law by the president) and a Bill passed by the Dáil and Seanad but not yet signed into law. Could the president, as "guardian of the constitution", bypass the emergency provisions by referring it to the court in Bill form?
Ó Dálaigh's referral of the Bill infuriated some cabinet members, who were rapidly running out of patience with him. While agreeing to his power to refer the Emergency Powers Bill, the court argued that it had to treat all Bills as embryonic Acts. If as an Act it could not be ruled unconstitutional, neither could it be ruled unconstitutional as a Bill.
Ó Dálaigh disagreed strongly. He decided to resign, drafting four different resignation documents (all undated), containing various reasons for resigning: the government's failure to inform him in advance about the national emergency; the taoiseach's continued failure to brief him on government policy, and in some, the court decision itself.
In one draft, he wrote: "I have no desire to preside as first citizen in a State . . . under a system of law as authoritatively defined for us as by the courts which falls so far short of my expectations."
Yet again, however, as with the Herrema letter, he never followed through and by Monday, October 18th, seemed to have abandoned, either temporarily or permanently, plans to resign.
Contrary to myth, it was not his referral of the Emergency Powers Bill, but the murder of Garda Michael Clerkin, which led to the Donegan attack.
Normally, presidents sign Bills into Acts with minimum fuss. Ó Dálaigh, rather theatrically, decided to sign the Emergency Powers Bill at midnight on October 15th, and announced the fact in advance.
Forewarned by his announcement, the IRA arranged a "spectacular" for the same time: Garda Clerkin was killed and his colleagues maimed in a boobytrapped house in Mountmellick. For many ministers, that was the last straw. Previously Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh had simply embarrassed them. Now he had cost a life.
On Sunday, October 17th, ministers attended Garda Clerkin's removal, with emotional images of the ceremony, and of tearful relatives, dominating Monday's papers. On that day Ó Dálaigh, thoughts of resignation seemingly abandoned, went off for a drive to his Wicklow home in his new State car.
An emotional Paddy Donegan, "like a zombie" in his words later, because he was still in shock from an earlier car accident, decided to show his support for the gardaí (their minister, the minister for justice, was at the function) by using a speech to soldiers to launch a scathing attack on Ó Dálaigh.
He called the president a "thundering disgrace" (other obscene versions are seemingly an urban myth) for referring the Bill. More seriously, he stated that the "Army must stand behind the State", implying to the soldiers that their commander in chief, President Ó Dálaigh, did not.
Although Donegan repeatedly offered his resignation, the taoiseach, in a colossal blunder, refused it, telling his minister merely to apologise in person to the president. The president however, refused to meet him, instead expecting a visit from the taoiseach that never came. When the Dáil voted confidence in the minister, the president resigned on October 22nd, 1976.
Marginalised by what he called a "boorish government", attacked by Donegan (and by Ted Heath, who in the US some weeks earlier had called him a "menace to civilisation"), ignored by Liam Cosgrave, the scale of Ó Dálaigh's vulnerability was shown in his private papers, which I have read in the UCD archives.
The papers were placed there in the late 1980s by Ó Dálaigh's widow, Mairín Bean Uí Dhálaigh. They have been consulted over the years by a few historians and journalists, but are rarely cited. One of the papers concerns a record of a conversation between Donegan and Mrs Ó Dálaigh and it remains secret, apparently at her request possibly under the 30-year rule.
In examining the papers that are open, I interviewed politicians relevant to the period to check their contents. Ó Dálaigh's contemporaneous notes are in smaller, even more illegible than normal handwriting, and frequently incoherent, with jumbled half-sentences, rambling comments and some delusional headings.
It is hard to read them without wondering whether in October 1976 the fifth president of Ireland had either had a breakdown or was on the brink of one. That in itself could have caused a constitutional crisis had he remained in office, for while the Constitution covers what to do in the case of a president's permanent incapacity, it has no methodology for dealing with a temporary incapacity.
Though horrified at what had led to his resignation, most politicians were glad to see the back of President Ó Dálaigh. They believed him too erratic, too unpredictable and too lacking in judgment for the sensitive role. All sides saw his replacement, Paddy Hillery, as possessing the right balance of tact, skill and judgment that had been sorely lacking in Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh.