Given the experience of the 1930 Conference, it was not surprising that Dublin was seriously worried. Cosgrave wrote to MacDonald, warning that such an amendment “would be wholly unacceptable to us … the interests of the peoples of the Commonwealth as a whole must be put before the prejudices of the small reactionary element in these islands”.157 McGilligan wrote in even more trenchant terms to Thomas: “I cannot conceive anyone except the most rabid reactionary desiring to reopen old sores and recreate the feeling of unrest and disturbance between our peoples all over the world. I do not believe that Mr Churchill has that desire. If he had he would not have signed the Treaty … the Treaty will be observed by the people of this country so long as it is a free instrument. If it becomes overshadowed by the slightest suspicion of external legal restraint it loses its free character, is no longer the same instrument and must inevitably defeat its original purpose.”158
Thomas told the Irish High Commissioner, John Dulanty, that he had been “playing for time”, because “practically nobody was in the House except the Diehards and … he was determined that … the Bill should not be defeated on the second reading”. In his defence, he also pointed out that he had said the Government would give consideration—rather than favourable consideration—to the proposed amendments.159 Ramsay MacDonald told Dulanty he agreed with Cosgrave’s letter, and said de Valera would be “jubilant” over Churchill’s speech, which he described as “one of the most mischievous speeches ever made in the House of Commons”.160 His formal reply to Cosgrave said he would not alter the Bill “unless the Government itself is defeated”.161 After minor amendments, the Statute received the Royal Assent on 11 December 1931.162
The Statute has frequently, and fairly, been described as a triumph for the Cosgrave government. It implemented many of the demands pursued by O’Higgins, McGilligan, FitzGerald and Costello over the previous decade. The Colonial Laws Validity Act no longer applied; no Dominion legislation would be declared void because it conflicted with English law; Dominion parliaments had full power to introduce legislation with extra-territorial scope; laws passed at Westminster would not apply to Dominions unless they requested that they should.163 In Costello’s words, its passage “marked the final crumbling of the legal theory on which the Constitution of the Old British Empire rested … The King, the bogey used by Anti-Treaty politicians, became a symbol of the fact that the states members of the Commonwealth were associated in that community … by their own free will.”164
Another tribute to the progress made came from an unexpected quarter. In the Seanad in June 1932, Eamon de Valera, then President of the Executive Council, acknowledged that “the 26 Counties … as a result of the 1926 and 1930 conferences, had practically got into the position—with the sole exception that instead of being a Republic it was a monarchy—that I was aiming at in 1921 for the whole of Ireland … I am prepared to confess that there have been advances made that I did not believe would be made at the time.”165 And while de Valera in office ignored the Statute of Westminster, there is no doubt that it cleared the path for his constitutional changes in the following years.166 His Attorney General, Conor Maguire, advised him that the Government had the power to remove the Oath, because “from the British point of view … the passing of the Statute of Westminster leaves it open to the Irish Free State to amend the constitution in any way it pleases”.167 Ironically, this view was confirmed in 1935—by no less a body than the much resented Privy Council.168
Costello’s role in the development of the Free State’s international status was significant of itself, but it is also of interest for what it tells us about the background to the Declaration of the Republic in 1948. Nicholas Mansergh argued that Cumann na nGaedheal, “while much preoccupied with the ending of all elements of continuing subordination, continued to think of Irish fulfilment within the Commonwealth”.169 This would seem to be supported by Patrick McGilligan’s comments to the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, at the 1930 Conference: “We don’t object to the Monarch or the Monarchy, but we do object to the British Parliament using the Monarchy. The King advised solely by our Ministers is what we want, and we will then be strongly monarchic.”170 This was the problem for Cumann na nGaedheal. They had successfully transformed the Commonwealth, but in the process they had become—in the public mind as well as their own—identified as the party of the Crown. It was an image Jack Costello became determined to change.
Chapter 5
THE BLUESHIRTS WILL BE VICTORIOUS
“… the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and … the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as … the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.”1
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 1934
“It is ridiculous to talk about Cosgrave being a Fascist or James Dillon or myself or Tom O’Higgins or any of these people—it is absurd.”2
JOHN A. COSTELLO, 1969
On 28 February 1934 John A. Costello made his most famous speech in the Dáil—which was unfortunate, as it was probably also his most ill-advised. He was responding to Fianna Fáil Justice Minister P.J. Ruttledge in a debate on the banning of uniforms. The ban was aimed squarely at the Blueshirts, a quasi-Fascist movement which formed part of the new Fine Gael party. Ruttledge defended his legislation by outlining similar measures in other countries, to which Costello replied, “The Minister gave extracts from various laws on the Continent, but he carefully refrained from drawing attention to the fact that the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as assuredly, in spite of this Bill and in spite of the Public Safety Act, the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.”3
It was deeply ironic that Costello, as wedded to democracy and the rule of law as any leading Irish politician, should come to make a speech comparing members of his own political party to Mussolini’s Fascists and Hitler’s storm-troopers. As he ruefully acknowledged 35 years later, the phrase went around his constituency at every subsequent election. But he claimed that it never affected him, because “my own constituents and everyone in Ireland knew that it was only a phrase”. He insisted he only meant that the Blueshirts would ensure free speech, adding that “at that time Mussolini and Hitler had not reached the bad situation that they subsequently reached, and which brought them the odium of the world”.4
It was true that the worst excesses of Nazism and Fascism were in the future. However, while the plight of German Jews may not have received a huge amount of coverage in the Irish media at the time, the treatment of the Catholic Church by the Nazis did. On the very day Costello drew his comparison between the Blueshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts, the Irish Independent reported Nazi attacks on the Cardinal of Munich, “whose sermons against paganism and in defence of the Old Testament have made him a target of attacks by Herr Rosenberg and other prominent Nazis. Stones were hurled though Cardinal Faulhaber’s windows a few weeks ago.”5 Genocide may not have been apparent in 1934, but thuggery most certainly was.
As far as Jack Costello was concerned, it was “only a phrase”. He did not wear a blue shirt himself, was not a fascist ideologue like some former Cabinet ministers, and did not subscribe to extreme views about anything. It was, as he put it, “absurd” to talk of him or Cosgrave or Dillon or Tom O’Higgins being fascists;6 but his speech gave the Government the opportunity to do just that, as was shown during the Dáil debate.
The controversial passage was part of a very long speech, covering more than 12 columns of the official record, most of which was devoted to a defence of civil rights, and a claim that the Bill was a menace to democracy because it was aimed by the Government at the main Opposition party, which had been acting within the law. “It is going to set a precedent for anybody who wishes to stifle for all time … the right of freedom of speech and the right of free association … The actions of the Government have brought the law, as administered by the present Government, into disrepute.”7
But Government speakers pounced on the comp
arison between the Blueshirts and the Nazis. Conor Maguire, Costello’s former associate in the L&H, now his successor as Attorney General and bitter political opponent, described it as the “fatal slip” of the speech. “Here we have it plain and clear that the Blueshirt organisation is here to be the spearhead of an attack upon democratic and Parliamentary institutions.”8 Seán Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, said his speech “brings very forcibly before the Dáil another stage in the development of militarism in politics”.9
Perhaps the main explanation, if not justification, for the speech was the belief on the Opposition benches that democracy was under threat from the Government, and in particular from its leader—a belief that would carry through to the debates on de Valera’s new Constitution three years later. The fact that events proved these fears groundless does not mean that they were not genuinely felt. To understand how and why the speech was made, it is necessary to consider why Fine Gael felt this way, and how John A. Costello found himself in the Dáil in the first place.
As we saw in Chapter 3, W.T. Cosgrave was opposed to political involvement on the part of the Attorney General. However, Costello played an active role in the 1932 election. In later years he claimed he was “seduced from the path of righteousness”10 by Ernest Blythe, who asked him to speak in his Monaghan constituency. In fact, before he went to Monaghan, he had already spoken to at least one election meeting, for the Dublin County candidates, in Rathmines Town Hall. In this, his first reported political speech, he said the happiness and prosperity of the people depended on the election result; that the Cumann na nGaedheal candidates represented all classes and creeds; and that the removal of the Oath would be “the clearest breach of the Treaty”.11
The following evening he spoke at an election meeting for Blythe in the Diamond in Monaghan Town. It was a colourful occasion. Blythe was met by “a torch-light procession … headed by Doohamlet warpipe band” as he entered the town, and the Cumann na nGaedheal speakers faced a rival Fianna Fáil rally a hundred yards away.12 Judging by the account in the Irish Independent, Costello’s speech was a rather dry recitation of the legal arguments on the annuities question.13 The following morning, the Attorney General tried to address an after-Mass crowd at Maheracloone Lower without much success. “When the congregation came out from Mass, they more or less lined up beside the ditch while Senator O’Rourke and I were maintaining a very precarious standing. And having lined up, a whistle was blown, and the entire congregation … walked away. And that was my first real entrance into practical politics …”14 It could have been worse—Cumann na nGaedheal speakers at an after-Mass meeting at another Monaghan village, Latton, faced scuffles which had to be broken up by Gardaí with drawn batons.15
It seems unlikely that the Attorney General’s intervention made much difference to the outcome, which saw Blythe hold his seat fairly comfortably (he was defeated in the following year’s snap election). But nationally, Cumann na nGaedheal didn’t fare so well, winning just 57 seats to Fianna Fáil’s 72, and losing office as de Valera was elected President of the Executive Council with the support of Labour. Cumann na nGaedheal’s defeat was probably inevitable thanks to the depression which followed the Wall Street Crash. But the party leadership, with the notable exception of Dick Mulcahy, certainly didn’t help matters by shunning the nuts and bolts of party organisation. W.T. Cosgrave told Garret FitzGerald in the 1960s that his Government had contained “a half-statesman, Kevin O’Higgins, but no politicians”. The former President said Desmond FitzGerald was “too busy arguing about theology with Father Cahill” to worry about party organisation, while Patrick McGilligan refused even to go to Cork for a meeting.16 Fair criticism, no doubt—though the party leader was even more to blame than his ministers.
While Jack Costello was dipping his toe into political waters, his father had already plunged in. Following his retirement, and the death of his wife in July 1929,17 John Costello ran for a seat on Dublin Corporation, being elected on three occasions for the North City (Number 3) electoral area. At the time of his first election in 1930 Cumann na nGaedheal did not contest local authority seats, as councils were regarded as non-party political. He ran instead under the banner of the “Greater Dublin Constitutional Group”, whose Chairman promised “to oppose all political discussion at Corporation meetings” in order “to secure the businesslike conduct of meetings, to enable the Corporation to concentrate on strictly Dublin affairs, and to avoid the introduction into local business of party bitterness and party wranglings, which has already done enough harm elsewhere”.18
The new Councillor’s political tone was moderate and reasonable—arguing the case for negotiations to reach a settlement in the Economic War with Britain in a letter to the Irish Independent in August 1932: “One does not need to be a politician to realise the value of negotiation as a means of overcoming obstacles and arriving at a basis for agreement … Political parties might continue to express their opinions to very little purpose, unless the ordinary man in the street, who after all is the sufferer, stands up for his own rights and insists on immediate negotiations.”19 He was also active on behalf of his constituents—his work was still remembered in Dublin North West in the 1950s,20 to the advantage of his grandson Declan, a TD for the area.
By the time the 1933 local elections came round, it was decided that the Constitutional Group candidates should run under the Cumann na nGaedheal banner. Party secretary Liam Burke explained that the Constitutional Group was “unequipped with the necessary political machinery … to prevent … threatened personation” (i.e. vote stealing). Burke promised that after the election, the candidates would revert to their traditional view, and resist Fianna Fáil attempts to use the corporations as a vehicle for party politics.21 John Costello lived up to this promise after retaining his seat and being elected Chairman of the Joint Committee of the Grangegorman Mental Hospital (which was at the end of the street on which he lived, Rathdown Road). At his first meeting as Chairman he sent a message to Fianna Fáil, then abstaining from the Corporation, expressing “the hope that at the next meeting they would have their absent colleagues”.22 It was also on the Grangegorman Committee that he became friendly with fellow councillor Big Jim Larkin23, a relationship which built bridges for his son with the Labour Party.
By 1936, John Costello was standing on the Fine Gael, or United Ireland Party, ticket. He had the backing of the Lord Mayor, Alfie Byrne, who included him on a list of candidates he urged the public to support. The Lord Mayor warned voters, “The Municipal council is not the place for politics. We have had too much politics in this country … Bands will play; slanderers will get busy; personators … will be active, and strenuous efforts will be made to make the Municipal Council a replica of An Dáil—a political machine where minorities must bow to force of numbers.”24 It was to be Councillor Costello’s last election—in October 1936, a day after chairing a meeting of the Grangegorman Mental Health Committee, he became ill and died at the age of 74.
To return to his son’s entry into politics: when Cosgrave and his colleagues lost office in 1932, they were firmly convinced that their exile on the Opposition benches would be a short one, because de Valera and Fianna Fáil would be unable to govern responsibly. Their worst fears appeared to be realised, as the new Government released all political prisoners, suspended Article 2A and lifted the ban on the IRA—although, in a “deliberately conciliatory gesture”, de Valera appointed former Cumann na nGaedheal TD James Geoghegan as Minister for Justice.25 So, when a new election was called in January 1933, Cumann na nGaedheal were confident of victory, a confidence boosted by what Costello later described as “huge demonstrations in Dublin and elsewhere”.26 A contemporary account, albeit in a pro-Cosgrave paper, described the former President addressing “one of the largest political meetings that Dublin has witnessed for a generation”, with 500 Gardaí and “several hundred members of the Army Comrades Association” foiling attempts to disrupt it.27 It was in this election campaig
n—“arguably the most bitter, turbulent and colourful in the history of independent Ireland”28—that John A. Costello first stood as a candidate.
He had already been selected to contest a by-election caused by the death of his friend and colleague at the Bar, Tom Finlay. Finlay had been in turn a District Justice, assistant secretary in the Department of Justice, practising barrister, and, from December 1930, TD for Dublin County. He had then won the by-election caused by the death of Major Bryan Cooper with a massive 35,362 votes to 15,024 for Fianna Fáil’s Conor Maguire.29 In the 1932 general election, Finlay was re-elected on the first count, but in November 1932, he died of paratyphoid. According to the Anglo-Celt, the local paper in his native Cavan, news of his death “came as a terrific shock, causing strong men to weep like children”. No doubt the sorrow was genuine, although the fact that Finlay was a nephew of the Anglo-Celt editor may have affected the tone of the coverage.30
Costello had been friendly with Finlay, in Government and at the Bar, and their wives were also close—Mrs Finlay was godmother to one of the Costello children.31 A selection convention chose John A. Costello to contest the expected by-election. Not everyone was delighted—the candidate later related the response of one north County Dublin senator to his selection: “he said with deep disgust: ‘Another lawyer!’”. Costello’s election theme, he later recalled, was that Cumann na nGaedheal was a national rather than a sectional party.32 He also stressed that W.T. Cosgrave would achieve “peace on decent terms with Great Britain … Cumann na nGaedheal was going to win this election, but they wanted a large majority.”33 The eight-seat Dublin County constituency stretched from Balbriggan to Bray, and out as far as Tallaght and Firhouse. The new candidate “fell into every ditch in north County Dublin in the dark when I was trying to find my way round”.34 He evidently discovered a fair few votes in those ditches, being elected on the first count with 10,941 first preferences, 890 over the quota. He was in third place behind Seán MacEntee of Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal’s Henry Dockrell. Cosgrave’s party managed to retain its four seats in the constituency, while Fianna Fáil won a seat from Labour. But nationally, Cumann na nGaedheal had a disastrous election, dropping 9 seats to just 48, while de Valera won his first overall majority with 77 seats.
The Reluctant Taoiseach Page 16
