PROFILE: JACK LYNCH IRISH REPUBLICS P.M.- A MAN WHO LOOKS FORWARD

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32308, 28 May 1970, Page 14

PROFILE: JACK LYNCH IRISH REPUBLICS P.M.A MAN WHO LOOKS FORWARD

(By

SIMON KAVANAUGH)

“Jack has very definite views. Don’t be misled by his manner because he is, if anything, a much tougher individual than I am. And much more determined.” Sean Lemass so described his successor as Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, Mr Jack Lynch, the man who now occupies what must be one of the most uncomfortable Cabinet seats in Europe.

After sacking two of his senior Ministers for allegedly plotting to send illegal arms to Catholics in Ulster, Lynch will need all the toughness and determination he can muster if he is to prevent his ruling party, Fianna Fail, from tearing itself apart. And if he is to prevent Eire from reviving the old passions which for so long dominated Irish politics and sapped the energy desperately needed to push the country into the twentieth century, he will need to be vigorous and tough. Very Much A Moderate

For all his fighting talk, his strident calls for a United Nations force in Ulster, his demands for a unified Ireland, and his military games with Southern Army units on the Ulster border, Jack Lynch is very much a moderate. And in a land where moderation is traditionally viewed with disdain the very fact that he is in power at all is a tribute to his considerable political acumen.

When he was elected Prime Minister four years ago it was on a compromise platform like Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Pope John, he was regarded as a competent but unimaginative administrator and no-one seriously considered he would stay the course. But he has stayed with a mixture of pragmatism and caution which has earned his regime the description “Government by tailwind.” Whatever the decision, Lynch does not commit himself until he knows public opinion will be on his side. To his friends he is the ultimate in coolness, to his enemies the last word 1 in political timidity. He himself summed up his philosophy with the typically droll remark: “A man with a full jug needs to walk easy.” A Full Jug No-one, least of all Lynch, doubts that Ireland is a full jug. In the North, partitioned after the war of independence in the early 19205, a million and a .half fiercely loyal Protestants are convinced that Lynch is about to browbeat them into an unholy alliance with the Catholic South. In the Republic just as many Catholics consider he has a moral obligation to help their fellows in the fight against Orange oppression, and to fulfill the dream of every Irish patriot—a United Ireland.

Jack Lynch would like to be a man of destiny, but he is too much of a realist to entertain fantasies of unity, either forced-or voluntary. He knows that Stormont is in no frame of mind to discuss even an economic alliance. And he knows that with an 8000-strong army equipped with a handful of obsolete tanks and aeroplanes, a display of strong-arm tactics would be madness.

Quite apart from which, the Republic has enough trouble paying its own way without taking on the burden of Ulster’s ailing economy. The subsidies which Belfast receives from Britain every year amount to nearly a third of Eire’s annual budget.

If Lynch has any burning ambition it is to make the South rich enough to be able to afford the North, to industrialise a country which until recently has remained stubbornly agricultural. It is only in the last decade that Eire has witnessed the industrial revolu-

tion that should have happened 100 years ago. The Government has taken great pains to attract foreign capital by offering generous tax concessions and rent-free factories. The Dutch have built a massive oil refinery in Cork, and a large infusion of foreign money has transformed Shannon from an ailing terminal by-passed by the big transatlantic jets into a booming industrial complex specialising in highly lucrative light engineering. Foreign investment has brought jobs to thousands of men and women who would otherwise have ended up digging trenches and nursing in London or Detroit. The old joke about there being more Irish in America than Ireland is growing less true every year. Unquestionably, Jack Lynch is largely responsible for the change. Before becoming Prime Minister he served a long term as Minister for Finance and Commerce, spearheading, among other things, Ireland's drive to join the Common Market It was a job that suited him well. For despite his political shrewdness, Lynch is an administrator first and a politician second. What he relishes most is getting to grips with economic facts and figures, using his immense organising ability to get things done. The tortuous business of political debate and intrigue, especially in a land ruled by the heart rather than the head, does not appeal to him at all. Never The Fanatic Unlike most Irish politicians, his entry into politics owed more to personel ambition than political conviction. He was never the fanatic, never the fervent patriot Born a year after the Easter Rising in 1916, he was only five when Ireland plunged into bloody civil war and the political divisions that were to bedevil Irish politics for the nevt 40 years. As a young lawyer in the late 1940 s Lynch was strongly tempted to join the anti-De Valera party, but the other side had a better organisation, so he teamed up with them instead. Undoubtedly, his political

path was smoothed by his record in Gaelic sport—six All-Ireland medals for hurling—a record which illustrates his knack for coming out on top. A sports writer who saw him play says: “I don’t know how he managed it because he was not as robust as a lot of the others, but somehow, whenever there was a ruck or a jumble, Jack would always come out clear with the ball.”

Privately, Jack Lynch Is quiet, soft-spoken and conservative with a small “c.” He lives modestly in a Dublin suburb, and drives a humble Ford while most of his colleagues own chaufferdriven Mercedes. Progressive Image His office at the Dail (the Irish Parliament) reflects the progressive image he has always tried to cultivate. When he moved in the room was dominated by huge plaster reliefs of five of the Republic’s heroes. Lynch had . the entire place refurnished and the casts replaced by works from the Irish National Gallery. He is a devout Catholic himself—“l do my religious duties diligently, but I’m not a craw-thumper”—but doesn’t let it influence his political attitudes. He recently gave his blessing at the attempted removal from the constitution of a clause recognising Catholicism as the official state religion. And he is now seriously considering commercial ties with Communist countries. “We realise we cannot maintain our ideological objections forever,” he says. “We have been thinking along the lines of trade missions." If Jack Lynch is forced to , quit as Ireland’s Prime Minister, and few of those who . know him think he will, Eire will have a tough job finding a replacement as serviceable or conscientious. He may be dull, he may be . lukewarm, but as one ’ Dubliner put it: “We’ve lived long enough in the past. Lynch is the one that looks forward.”