How do you measure a politician’s life? By the standards of the political (or any other) breed Dr Garret FitzGerald, who died this morning, was an uncommonly decent, humane, kind individual. Partly because of that his two terms as Taoiseach were less than wholly successful. Yet their legacy has been immense and FitzGerald should be remembered as a transformational figure whose lasting impact on Irish life and society was, in many ways, greater than that of his great rival Charlie Haughey.
Though each came from political families and could boast the necessary nationalist credentials, they were opposites in so many ways. Haughey the brilliant plotter and manipulator, FitzGerald the donnish intellectual. While Haughey sparkled, FitzGerald plodded. But Charlie died in disgrace and Garret is today remembered as the Grand Old Man of recent Irish political history.
Twice called upon to rescue the Republic from the consequences of Fianna Fail’s spendthrift ways, to say nothing of the disgraces and calamities of Haughey’s GUBU government, FitzGerald’s first task was to restore sanity and credibility to the public finances. That was a matter of necessity; his second “Crusade” (his term) was of his own choosing: the wholesale refashioning of Irish attitudes and society. Women, in particular, benefitted from his vision of a more inclusive Ireland.
Many of those battles ended in failure. He blundered on abortion and his divorce referendum was defeated by the Bishops and the electorate. His desire to amend Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution, which laid claim to the six counties of Northern Ireland, was dismissed as just another quixotic obsession and stop on his “intellectual pub crawl from one issue to the next”. Nevertheless, FitzGerald was ahead of his time.
If the Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed in 1985, was his signature achievement and one that laid the foundations for a peace process, his desire to “desectarianise” the Republic was just as important in changing, eventually, the idea of Ireland itself. If he demanded “parity of esteem” for nationalists in the north, he also asked that the Republic make greater efforts to understand Unionism.
FitzGerald’s governments were in many ways the only truly liberal administrations ever elected in the Republic. Though short-lived (memo to politicians: putting VAT on children’s shoes is never a popular move) they were consequential governments. The Irish social revolution – in attitudes and policy alike – was largely begun by FitzGerald. He challenged Ireland to ask itself what kind of country, what nature of Republic, it wanted to be.
The answers came after he’d left office. But the more open, liberal, tolerant, pluralist Ireland enjoyed today is at least in part a consequence of the issues FitzGerald pursued and the questions he asked. That’s no small legacy at all.
A good and decent man, some thought him too oddly-honest to thrive in politics. He’s said to have suggested that a given idea “was fine in practice but does it work in theory?” but where Haughey retreated from public life, FitzGerald remained engaged. Years after he left office he’d still accept invitations to speak at undergraduate debating societies while his Irish Times column, though rarely lively, afforded another platform for his relentless chivvying.
By then, in truth, FitzGerald didn’t often draw much of a crowd when he came to speak at Trinity College. He often seemed like yesterday’s man but that did him a disservice and the students of the time, as today’s do too, owed him more than perhaps they realised or properly appreciated at the time. We can see more clearly now, however, and recognise that he played a great part in the creation of a better Ireland.
UPDATE: Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber has a fine, personal, tribute.
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