Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (born Carroll O'Daly; 12 February 1911 – 21 March 1978) was an Irish barrister, judge and Fianna Fáil politician who served as the president of Ireland from December 1974 to October 1976. Following a breakdown in relations with the government intensified by remarks made by a senior minister, he was the first president of Ireland to resign from office.

A trained barrister and accomplished scholar of Irish literature and language, Ó Dálaigh became Éamon de Valera's protégé in the 1930s. He was appointed Attorney General in 1946 and a Supreme Court justice in 1953, the youngest-ever holder of either position at the time. He was promoted to Chief Justice of Ireland in 1961, and presided over a period of greater assertiveness on the part of the Irish judiciary. In 1973, he became the first Irish judge to sit on the European Court of Justice.

Ó Dálaigh became President of Ireland unexpectedly following the death of Erskine Childers. Growing conflict with the National Coalition government spilled out into open acrimony following hostile comments by defence minister Paddy Donegan. This led to Ó Dálaigh's resignation after twenty-two months in office. His departure and the circumstances around it remain a subject of controversy.

Early life

Carroll O'Daly, the second of four children, was born on 12 February 1911, in Bray, County Wicklow. His father, Richard O'Daly, was the manager of a fish shop. His mother was Úna Thornton, an Irish speaker, cultural nationalist and member of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. His uncle, Joe Thornton, was a participant in the Battle of Ashbourne during the Easter Rising. Ó Dálaigh used the English form of his name during his legal career and it sometimes appeared in overseas publications during his presidency.

Ó Dálaigh had an elder brother, Aonghus, and two younger sisters, Úna and Nuala. He went to St. Cronan's Boys National School Following the death of his father when Ó Dálaigh was nine years old, his family moved to Dublin and he studied at Synge Street CBS. At Synge Street, Aonghus and Cearbhall were proficient Irish speakers and supporters of Irish culture, reportedly wearing "saffron kilts, saffron shawls and black tunics" to school.

While attending University College Dublin, Ó Dálaigh served as auditor of An Cumann Gaelach and the Literary and Historical Society. He claimed that his election as Auditor of the L&H was arranged by a fellow student, Brian O'Nolan, who agreed with his support for the rights of hecklers. Ó Dálaigh became a protégé of de Valera, due to their shared passion for the Irish language, and he was regarded internationally as an expert on Irish-language literature. Ó Dálaigh's brother Aonghus also worked at the Irish Press, serving as the newspaper's librarian until his death in 1967.

In 1934, Ó Dálaigh married Máirín Nic Dhiarmada, a fellow student at UCD he had come to know through the Literary and Historical Society, Conradh na Gaeilge and the hillwalking club. They had no children.

Ó Dálaigh was conferred with the degree of barrister-at-law by King's Inns and called to the bar in 1934, becoming a senior counsel in 1944.

As Attorney General, Ó Dálaigh advised the government that membership of the United Nations would compel Ireland to participate in war at the behest of the Security Council, a fact which conflicted with the role of Dáil Éireann in declaring war in the Constitution of Ireland. However, a Soviet veto of Irish membership rendered these concerns academic. In 1947, Ó Dálaigh also gave advice which ended the arrangement whereby wireless stations at Malin Head and Valentia Island were presumed to be under the control of the British Post Office, a provision of the Anglo-Irish Treaty which he said ceased to apply legally in 1938.

While serving as a justice, Ó Dálaigh remained active in the arts community, serving as Chair of the Cultural Relations Committee, a body established by the Department of Foreign Affairs to promote Irish culture abroad. However, there is no known contemporary reference to this having occurred. He also served as vice president of the Dublin Theatre Festival during this period.

Under Ó Dálaigh, the Supreme Court embarked on a new direction in the 1960s, seeking to uphold fundamental rights and showing more willingness to challenge the government than previously. These proposals were rejected by the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, who demanded that a member of their party be nominated to contest the election.

An Irish Independent editorial expressed disappointment at the lack of a popular mandate for the new president, but praised Ó Dálaigh for his breadth of interests outside the legal field, suggesting these made him a suitable head of state. The Irish Times echoed these sentiments, remarking that Ó Dálaigh's "personality has not been dehydrated by his profession". In his inaugural address, he spoke in Irish, English and French, declaring:

<blockquote>The press, in recent days, have repeatedly asked me: 'What, Mr President-elect, is your policy going to be as President?' I have invariably answered – and, I think, correctly – that presidents, under the Irish Constitution, don't have policies. But perhaps a president can have a theme. If he can, then I have found the answer for my friends of the press. The theme of my septennat, más cead sin le Dia, will again be that of my early student days: Community Spirit. How sorely needed in part of this strife-torn island, with the new European dimension added, and, never forgetting, our brothers of the Third World.</blockquote>

In 1975, Ó Dálaigh became the first Common Market head of state to make an official visit to the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. Ó Dálaigh retained an interest in the arts as president: when Tom Murphy's play The Sanctuary Lamp had its first performance at the Abbey Theatre in 1975, the audience objected to its depiction of the clergy. Ó Dálaigh, who had been in the audience, took to the stage after the performance to defend the playwright, calling the play "one of the great Irish dramas" and comparing it to The Playboy of the Western World and Juno and the Paycock. Ó Dálaigh, a polyglot and enthusiast for European culture, caused consternation to journalists covering his foreign visits due to his tendency to avoid using English.

Resignation

Ó Dálaigh's background as an interventionist jurist brought him into conflict with a crisis-ridden government as president. The coalition under Liam Cosgrave faced high unemployment, rising inflation and a balance-of-payments deficit, and the state was under pressure from the British government to crack down on the Provisional IRA's activities south of the border. Relations between Ó Dálaigh and Cosgrave were strained due to a perceived failure to keep him "informed on matters of domestic and international policy" as per Article 28.5.2° of the Irish constitution.

On 21 July 1976, the British ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, was assassinated outside his residence at Glencairn House by the IRA. In the aftermath, the government announced its intention to introduce legislation extending the maximum period of detention without charge from two to seven days. According to Donal Barrington, Ó Dálaigh objected to the government's use of the constitution's emergency powers to crack down on the IRA. He did not believe their armed campaign met the threshold of "an armed conflict in which the State was not a participant", a provision originally drafted to refer to the Second World War. After the referral, former British prime minister Edward Heath is reported to have called Ó Dálaigh a "menace to civilisation". Ronan Fanning observed in 2006 that Ó Dálaigh's private papers betrayed profound disagreement with the Supreme Court's decision, and that he had already begun drafting a resignation letter when the bill was upheld. In regard to one such draft, Fanning wrote: "The vehemence of his concern with the decision's supposed impact on 'the role of the President as protector of the Constitution' is suggestive of an inability to distinguish between his role and the Supreme Court's role as final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution." ÓDálaigh's actions in delaying the bill were seen by the government to have contributed to the killing of Clerkin. Two days later, Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan, visiting Columb Barracks in Mullingar to open a canteen, told a reporter covering the event for the Westmeath Examiner that the president was a "thundering disgrace" for sending the bill to the Supreme Court. Donegan's comments, a departure from his prepared script, quickly came to the attention of the national media.

The following day, Donegan wrote a letter to Ó Dálaigh, stating: "I wish to tender to you my very deep regret for my use of the words 'thundering disgrace' in relation to you. I repeat my expression of sincere and humble apology." Ó Dálaigh replied immediately, stating Donegan had "no understanding" of the damage caused by his comments, especially as they had been made to an audience of defence personnel whose commander-in-chief was the president. He continued: "A special relationship exists between the President and the Minister for Defence ... that relationship has been irreparably breached not only by what you said yesterday but also because of the place where, and the persons before whom, you chose to make your outrageous criticism."

Ó Dálaigh was outraged by what he perceived as the Taoiseach's siding with the minister over him. Despite a further letter of apology on 22 October, Ó Dálaigh tendered his resignation that day.

Reporting on the resignation for The New York Times, journalist Liam Hourican observed that Ó Dálaigh's view of his role as head of state derived from his devoted study of the U.S. constitution and had some support from Irish legal experts, but that such an assertive presidency was without precedent in Ireland. Hourican also noted the irony that Ó Dálaigh, an accidental president, had been more active than his popularly elected predecessors. He was the first President of Ireland to resign from office, and was succeeded by Patrick Hillery.

Retirement and death

Following his resignation, Ó Dálaigh and his wife moved to a house outside Sneem, County Kerry. In 1977, they visited China at the invitation of the Chinese government. Ó Dálaigh died suddenly of a heart attack on 21 March 1978, aged 67. He received a state funeral and was buried in Sneem. His widow, Máirín Uí Dhálaigh, died in 1994.

Speaking on his centenary in 2011, then-President Mary McAleese said:

<blockquote>History will be kind to Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. He is entitled to that. Lawyers of my generation knew him to be a brave, cutting edge and inspiring jurist, an innovative and courageous leader just as the Irish people knew him as a man of simple decent honour, unfazed by personal position or privilege despite the many achievements which his brilliance had brought him. His life, in particular its penultimate chapter as President will no doubt remain a subject of debate, even heated debate. Those eventful two years as President were but a thin slice of the life of a man who when he took on the role at the age of 65 had behind him the kind of phenomenally successful career both nationally and internationally that comes along all too rarely.</blockquote>

See also

  • List of members of the European Court of Justice

Notes

References

  • Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh: Website developed by his nephew Liam Ó hAlmhain
  • UCD archives