Thoughts on Patrick Hillery

You can learn a lot from YouTube, besides just what tricks people's dogs can do or how college boys can write "DICK" on the foreheads of their passed-out-drunk friends. In watching some of the various documentary gems to be found there, I've learned in recent days about a wholly remarkable person in modern Irish history – Patrick Hillery, the sixth (sometimes noted as fifth) President of Ireland.

Hillery served two seven-year terms, from 1976 to 1990, and is constantly characterized as mild-mannered in any account of his life you come across, particularly those written upon his death back in April, 2008. And yet, he seems to have exerted a great influence on the modern form of Irish life. Born just after Partition, he was educated as a doctor (apparently even living in Canada for a short while), and became involved in politics almost accidentally... as often happens with truly modest and unusually effective people. It seems to have happened because he lived in Clare and was well-known to Eamon de Valera. It was most of a decade, however, before he was given a cabinet position: Minister for Education. Here is where he seems to have made the first of his many marks on the shape of modern Ireland, for he is credited with making the changes to the educational system that, a generation later, saw that the country had a work force possessed of an education of the quality and nature to take advantage of EU transfers and build the Celtic Tiger.

He went on to serve as the Labour Minister and was offered a shot at the job of Taioseach (Prime Minister) on the resignation of Sean Lemass, but declined because he wasn't interested in the position. The job went instead to Jack Lynch, and Hillery became his Foreign Affairs Minister. This was the job Hillery held during the start-up of the Troubles and its most significant early incidents, notably Bloody Sunday, in the aftermath of which the British Embassy in Dublin was burnt down by a mob of 30,000. Hillery went abroad, making speeches about how, in his opinion, the British Government had "gone mad", and calling for a joint British-Irish military occupation of Northern Ireland, or barring that, a UN peacekeeping operation there. Of course, neither of these things happened, but the openness and force of Hillery's statements, including a dire prediction that the situation might lead to war between Britain and Ireland (indeed, hawks in Fianna Fail urged the occupation of border areas by Irish troops), shocked and angered the British Government, but were arguably instrumental in getting them to act. Westminster went on to suspend Stormont and take direct control over Northern Ireland. His quick thinking in response to a charge by Kevin Boland was pivotal in a moment in Fianna Fail's history when the hawks might have taken the reins of the party and thus, the Irish government. The 1970s could have been far more "interesting" in the island of Ireland had not Hillery brought the convention to its senses.

Hillery was instrumental in Ireland's accession to the EEC in 1973, which was to be a major factor in Ireland's eventual growth and development. As president from 1976 to 1990, he was able to oversee, if not actually guide, Ireland's evolution along this route to one of Europe's most dynamic economies.

There's a lot I'd like to learn about Hillery's role, in depth. I've found a biography of him and I've ordered it. Ireland's a land filled to the brim with heroes of all stripes, colours, and sizes... but Patrick Hillery looks to me, at first blush, like the sort the country could use more of... and a lot more of.