Everything about Brian Lenihan Snr totally explained
Brian Patrick Lenihan (;
17 November 1930 –
1 November 1995) was an
Irish Fianna Fáil politician. In a long political career he served
as Government Minister in different portfolios. Lenihan was also Senator in
Seanad Éireann. He was
Tánaiste in 1987 and was a defeated candidate for the office of
President of Ireland in 1990.
He was a member of a family political dynasty; his father,
Patrick Lenihan, and sister both followed him into
Dáil Éireann, his sister
Mary O'Rourke sitting in cabinet with him. Two of his sons,
Brian Lenihan, Jnr and
Conor Lenihan, became
TDs in the 1990s. Brian Lenihan, Jnr now serves as
Minister for Finance and Conor is a current
Minister of State in the government of
Taoiseach Brian Cowen. His two catchphrases,
no problem and
on mature recollection, entered the Irish political lexicon.
Brian Lenihan was born in
Dundalk in
County Louth. After studying in
University College Dublin he qualified as a
barrister from King's Inns. He practised law for a few years before becoming a full time politician.
Minister for Justice
Lenihan contested his first general election, unsuccessfully, in
1954 and was appointed to
Seanad Éireann in
1957 by Taoiseach
Éamon de Valera. In
1961 he was elected TD for the
Roscommon-Leitrim constituency. In
1964 he was appointed Minister for Justice by Fianna Fáil
Taoiseach Seán Lemass. He was one of the new generation of political leaders Lemass brought to the fore; others included
Donagh O'Malley,
Patrick Hillery,
George Colley and
Charles Haughey. At Justice he succeeded Charles Haughey. With Haughey's transfer to become Minister for Agriculture, Lenihan carried the legislative programme, covering everything from repealing mediæval laws to granting succession rights to married women. As Minister it was Lenihan who repealed Ireland's notorious censorship laws. Controversially he also suggested that the Republic of Ireland should rejoin the
Commonwealth of Nations, though it's unclear whether that suggestion actually reflected
his opinion or whether he was simply raising the issue at Lemass's request to gauge public reaction.
Minister for Education
In
1968 Lemass's successor
Jack Lynch appointed Lenihan as Minister for Education. As Education minister he controversially proposed the merger of Dublin's (then) two universities,
Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and
University College Dublin (UCD). However the scheme was abandoned after mass opposition, Lenihan famously being forced to flee student protests in TCD through a toilet window.
Foreign Minister, then loses Dáil seat
Between
1969 and
1973 he served as Minister for Transport and Power. In
1973, following Dr. Patrick Hillery's appointment as Irish
EEC Commissioner, Taoiseach
Jack Lynch appointed Lenihan as Minister for Foreign Affairs for a short time. However, in the
1973 general election, Lenihan's party lost power and he dramatically lost his
Roscommon-Leitrim Dáil seat. He contested the immediately following Senate election and was elected, becoming his party's leader in the upper house. In 1973, Lenihan was appointed a member of the
second delegation from the
Oireachtas to the
European Parliament.
Lenihan moved his political base from rural Roscommon to
West County Dublin, where he was elected again as a TD in the
1977 general election landslide victory by Fianna Fáil.
Jack Lynch appointed him Minister for Forestry and Fisheries.
Lynch's retirement in
1979 saw a leadership battle between
Charles Haughey (the radical republican candidate) and
George Colley (the party establishment candidate). Lenihan dismissed the choice as being between a "knave and a fool". He also described himself as being the "x in
Oxo" He was believed to have backed Colley. Years later he claimed he'd actually supported Haughey, but not everyone accepted this assertion.
Haughey, the new party leader, appointed Lenihan Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post he held until Fianna Fáil lost power in
1981. His period in Foreign Affairs was overshadowed by a comment made after an
Anglo-Irish summit between Haughey and
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when he spoke of Britain and Ireland being able to bring about
Irish unity within ten years, a comment which infuriated the
British and
Northern Ireland unionists and which undid much of the goodwill achieved by the summit. His comments, at a time of major problems within Northern Ireland, with the
Provisional IRA and
Irish National Liberation Army campaigns in full swing, were widely criticised in the Irish media as insensitive, especially as Irish unity hadn't even been on the agenda of the summit. One newspaper columnist commented simply "there goes Brian, pointlessly talking himself into trouble again". In 1982, when Fianna Fáil regained power for ten months, Lenihan was Minister for Agriculture, the announcement in the Dáil being greeted by a sustained round of laughter on the opposition benches.
Opposition to, then implementation of, the Anglo-Irish Agreement
In opposition, Lenihan and Haughey attracted some international criticism when, against the advice of senior
Irish-American politicians Senator
Edward Kennedy and Speaker
Tip O'Neill, they campaigned against the
Anglo-Irish Agreement, which the government of
Garret FitzGerald had signed with the
British government of
Margaret Thatcher and which gave the Republic an advisory role in the governance of
Northern Ireland. In
1987 Fianna Fáil returned to power and Lenihan was for the third and final time appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the additional post of
Tánaiste (deputy prime minister). In power Haughey and Lenihan reversed their opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Lenihan attending meetings of the Anglo-Irish Conference which the Republic's foreign minster and the British
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland co-chaired.
Liver transplant
Lenihan's last period as Minister for Foreign Affairs was overshadowed by his serious ill-health. A long-standing liver problem had developed into a life-threatening issue requiring a liver transplant. In May 1989 Lenihan underwent the liver transplant in the
Mayo Clinic in the
United States. In his absence he was re-elected to the Dáil in the
1989 general election, after which, while remaining Tánaiste he was made Minister of Defence. Brian Lenihan returned with a new lease of life, speaking about his religious beliefs in an Irish religious magazine.
It was revealed subsequently that Brian Lenihan's operation was partly paid for through fundraising by Taoiseach Charles Haughey from businessmen with Fianna Fáil links. In evidence to the
Moriarty Tribunal(External Link
) investigating Haughey's finances it was established that much of the money raised but not ultimately needed for the operation was redirected
(External Link) by Haughey into his own personal bank account.
Presidential candidate
In January
1990 leaks to the media suggested that Brian Lenihan was considering seeking the Fianna Fáil nomination to become the party candidate for the Irish presidential election, which was due in November of that year. Speculation abounded that the media spin was part of a plan to discourage other parties from running candidates in the belief that Lenihan would prove unbeatable and so get the office unopposed. This idea was derailed when
Irish Labour Party leader
Dick Spring indicated in January 1990 that not merely was Labour guaranteed to run a candidate for the presidency,
he would run if no-one else was available. Ultimately in April 1990 Labour chose former Senator
Mary Robinson as its candidate.
Challenge of John Wilson
Lenihan was generally perceived as unbeatable for the presidency, though he did receive a late challenge for the nomination from cabinet colleague
John Wilson. However, in September 1990 Lenihan was formally nominated as his party's candidate. The main opposition party,
Fine Gael chose new Fine Gael TD and former
Social Democratic and Labour Party cabinet minister in Northern Ireland,
Austin Currie, to be its candidate.
Lenihan however had one serious flaw. Though regarded by those who knew him personally as an intellectual heavyweight he'd masked his ability behind an image of a lightweight, semi-comic politician, the "clown prince" of Irish politics, in the words of longtime friend, journalist John Healy. He was once described by
Fine Gael politician and former
Attorney General, John Kelly as
like a lighthouse in the Bog of Allen, brilliant but useless. During leadership heaves against Haughey in the 1980s Lenihan had regularly appeared on
RTÉ television to insist that Fianna Fáil was
not divided, even as ministers were resigning from cabinet, and when Haughey supporters physically assaulted an opponent of Haughey's, ex-minister
Jim Gibbons, in the environs of
Leinster House, the Republic's parliament building.
That image was augmented by a disastrous
Late Late Show TV special devoted to him and broadcast only weeks before the presidential campaign started, in which colleagues and friends of Lenihan projected an image of him as a political, which describes someone who would do anything and pull any stunt that was required, including making any promises to the electorate without any intention of following them through. As a result, while his personal
popularity was high, his perceived
trustworthiness didn't achieve the same heights.
The Lenihan tape
The issue of Lenihan's trustworthiness became the central issue of the second half of the presidential campaign, where a furore arose over his involvement on Haughey's behalf in 1982 to pressurise the President,
Patrick Hillery, a former government colleague of Lenihan's, into refusing Taoiseach
Garret FitzGerald a parliamentary dissolution in January 1982. Had Hillery done so FitzGerald would have had to resign, allowing Haughey to attempt to form a government. Allowing Haughey to form a government without calling a general election and giving him the freedom to choose the timing of a subsequent election would have protected Haughey from rumoured plans to depose him, as he'd have been able to use his appointments powers to reward middle ground TDs who might otherwise have supported moves to topple him.
Lenihan, over the eight years since the incident, had never denied that he'd been one of the people making phonecalls to
Áras an Uachtaráin that night in January 1982. That he'd made phone calls was mentioned in newspapers and in books by authors Stephen O'Byrnes and Raymond Smith and by many political journalists in newspaper articles, some of whom had Lenihan privately as their source. In September 1990
The Irish Times carried a series of articles on the presidency, one of whom mentioned in passing the role of Lenihan,
Sylvester Barret and Charles Haughey in making the controversial phonecalls to Áras an Uachtaráin, to pressurise the President.
In October 1990, in the midst of the presidential election, Lenihan changed his story and, in an interview in the
Irish Press newspaper and on
RTÉ's
Questions and Answers political programme, insisted that he'd played
no hand, act or part in efforts to pressurise President Hillery. All his previous confirmations had been in
off the record briefings to journalists who couldn't reveal he was the source of their stories. However, on
17 May 1990 Lenihan had confirmed his participation in one
on the record interview with a post-graduate student and journalist,
Jim Duffy, who was researching the presidency of Ireland for a thesis and for a series of newspaper articles in
The Irish Times. In the aftermath of Lenihan's TV denial, The Irish Times, which was aware that Lenihan
himself was Duffy's source for the original article claim, with Duffy's agreement, published a newspaper story confirming that contrary to Lenihan's TV claim, he'd made the controversial phone calls to the Áras in an attempt to pressurise President Hillery. When Lenihan's campaign manager, Bertie Ahern, on radio inexplicably named Duffy as someone who had interviewed Lenihan back in May, a political storm erupted in which the journalist was put under siege by the media and Fianna Fáil, leading to the reluctant decision after consulting with lawyers to release the portion of the tape in which Lenihan talked about the events of January 1982.
'On mature recollection'
Lenihan's immediate reaction severely damaged his credibility. He appeared on a live news bulletin and looking to camera in a manner media commentators referred to as
Nixonesque pleaded with the Irish people to believe him, arguing that
on mature recollection he hadn't phoned President Hillery and his account to Duffy had been wrong. He then requested an
audience with President Hillery to seek his confirmation that he made no phone calls. In the end when no audience was granted his campaign manager, Bertie Ahern, decided to withdraw the request though in a sign of the chaos envelloping the campaign, Lenihan, not knowing of this decision, told RTÉ journalist Charlie Bird that the request was still there until the journalist played back his interview with Ahern, after which Lenihan recorded a new soundbite explaining why the request had been withdrawn. It was further revealed that one of the callers named under parliamentary privilege was Haughey, though he denied it. Haughey had threatened when he returned to power to end the career of the
army officer who took the calls and who on President Hillery's explicit instruction had refused to put any of them through to the President. Fergus Finlay, a senior aide to Labour leader Dick Spring, was telephoned by an anonymous source with details of the threat. According to Finlay, Haughey having told the Army Officer to
put me through to the President and, on the basis of the President's earlier instructions being refused, told the army officer that he'd be Taoiseach one day and
when I am, I intend to roast your fucking arse if you don't put me through immediately. It was stated that the President as Commander-in-Chief had expressly recorded details of the threat made against the army officer in the officer's file with an instruction that his career wasn't to be harmed in any way by the politician.
The opposition put down a motion of no-confidence in the government. The minority party in government, the
Progressive Democrats, told Haughey that unless Lenihan was either dismissed or an inquiry set up into the events of January 1982 it would resign from government, support the opposition motion and so force a general election on the issue. Though insisting that he'd put no pressure on Brian Lenihan, "my friend of thirty years", in private, Haughey drew up a letter of resignation which he tried to get Lenihan to sign. Lenihan refused, and so Haughey formally advised President Hillery to withdraw Lenihan's seal of office as Tánaiste and as Minister for Defence, which Hillery, as was required constitutionally, duly did, despite grave personal concerns. Many in Fianna Fáil were disgusted with what they saw as Haughey's betrayal of his old friend.
Pádraig Flynn's attack on Mary Robinson
Lenihan's dismissal led to an immediate collapse in popularity (from the mid 40% to 31% almost overnight) but then rallied. However, a subsequent personal attack by former cabinet colleague,
Pádraig Flynn on Mary Robinson, in which he accused her of showing a "new found interest" in her family, backfired and destroyed Lenihan's campaign. Progressive Democrats president
Michael McDowell verbally savaged Flynn on the radio show where the attack was made. Women voters, incensed at Flynn's attack, rallied to Robinson and abandoned the Lenihan campaign in droves. While Lenihan did win more votes in the first count, most of the votes that went to Austin Currie (who came in third with 17%) transferred against Lenihan, going to Robinson. As a result, Mary Robinson, not the odds-on favourite at the start of the campaign, became the 7th
President of Ireland. Lenihan was the first Fianna Fáil candidate to lose an Irish presidential election.
Out of government
Lenihan remained active in politics right up to his death in 1995. Bitter at what he saw as his betrayal by the Progressive Democrats, he campaigned for Fianna Fáil to coalesce with the Labour Party instead, something which happened after the
1992 general election. He also occasionally reviewed books, which showed an intellect that he'd suppressed in his public persona as a politician.
Death
Brian Lenihan's health again deteriorated and he died in 1995 at the age of 64. In the resulting by-election, his son
Brian Lenihan, Jnr was elected to his seat.
In the
1997 general election another son,
Conor Lenihan, was elected to Dáil Éireann.
Overview and legacy
Brian Lenihan was a complex Irish politician. He is regarded as one of the most intelligent politicians to have sat in Leinster House, mentioned alongside
Éamon de Valera,
Garret FitzGerald and
John Kelly,as one of the major parliamentary intellectuals in modern Irish political history.
Lenihan's public image was, as John Healy observed, that of being the
clown prince of politics, given to say
no problem and
there is no question of that continually in interviews, to the amusement of viewers and the exasperation of television presenters. Nonetheless his forward-looking legislative programme, including his abolition of the repressive censorship laws, have earned him a noted place in the history of Irish governance.
Brian Lenihan Memorial Lecture
A
Brian Lenihan Memorial Lecture is delivered annually in the Irish
Institute of European Affairs. The first guest speaker was the late
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead (formerly British Home Secretary and President of the European Commission
Roy Jenkins). In 2001 the lecture was given by
Chris Patten, former
Conservative Party minister, governor of Hong Kong and current British European Commissioner.
Quotes
- On emigration; "We can't all live on a small island."
Footnotes
Additional Reading
Bruce Arnold, Jack Lynch, Hero in Crisis (Merlin, 2001) ISBN 1-903582-06-7
James Downey, Lenihan: His Life and Loyalties (New Island Books 1998) ISBN 1-874597-97-9
Fergus Finlay, Snakes and Ladders (New Island Books, 1998) 1874597766
Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh, The Boss: Charles J. Haughey in Government (Poolbeg, 1983) ISBN 0-905169-69-7
Brian Lenihan, For the Record (Blackwater Press, ISBN 0-86121-362-9
T. Ryle Dwyer, Nice Fellow: A Biography of Jack Lynch (Mercier, 2001) ISBN 1-85635-368-0
T. Ryle Dwyer, Short Fellow: A Biography of Charles J. Haughey (Mercier, 1995) ISBN 1-86023-100-4
T. Ryle Dwyer, Fallen Idol: Haughey's Controversial Career (Mercier 1997) ISBN 1-85635-202-1
Raymond Smith, Haughey and O'Malley: The Quest for Power (Aherlow, 1986) ISBN 1-870138-00-7
Dick Walsh, Inside Fianna Fáil (Gill & Macmillan, 1986) ISBN 0-7171-1446-5Further Information
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