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William Cosgrave

1880–1965

 

Though he had taken a large part in the Irish revolution, to W.T. Cosgrave fell the harder task of establishing the new Irish state in 1922.  That modern Ireland is an open stable democracy is largely a result of his work and it remains his greatest memorial, whatever the claims of other figures such as MICHAEL  COLLINS [3] and EAMON  DE  VALERA [2].

      Born in 1874 in the shadow of the Guinness brewery on St James Street, from his earliest years he was involved in nationalist activities.  He was educated by the Christian Brothers, then a certain way of being introduced to the notion of Ireland's special destiny.  His father, Thomas Cosgrave, had at one time been an elected town councillor and a poor-law guardian, these being the main offices of local government in Dublin.

      W.T. Cosgrave entered the grocery trade as a lad and seemed set to follow that mundane vocation.  But perhaps due to his education he was attracted to Sinn Féin.  From his business background he had a sound grasp of finance, and in 1916, another significant year, he was elected chairman of Sinn Féin's finance committee.

      In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers, which had been formed the year before.  When the volunteers, who then numbered about one hundred thousand men, split in August 1914 over the issue of the First World War, he was one of the ten thousand who refused to follow the lead given by John Redmond.  When the uprising was under way he was one of those who followed Pearse and Connolly, disobeying the order of Eoin MacNeill to stand down.  Only 600 men, a very small fraction of the Volunteer movement, took part in the Easter Week rebellion.  He was arrested after the uprising and interned at Frongoch in North Wales until July 1917, when most of the prisoners were released.

      In 1917 Cosgrave was nominated to stand in the Sinn Féin interest in a by-election in Kilkenny.  By now Sinn Féin had moved from its original non-violent espousal of a dual monarchy for Ireland to being a republican party.  In the December 1918 post-war election he was elected for Kilkenny County.  He was a member of the first Dáil that met in Dublin in January 1919 and declared the Irish republic.  He was appointed minister for local government in the underground administration because of his own experience in that area.

      During the troubles his main task was to coordinate the refusal of local authorities in Ireland to cooperate with the British authorities at Dublin Castle.  All this time he was on the run, and was more than once imprisoned.

      When the treaty was signed in December 1919, it split the movement again.  In the Dáil treaty debates, Cosgrave's speech was one of the very few that attracted widespread comment.  In the government of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, he was once again minister of local government, now charged with easing the transition from the old administration to the new without a hitch.

      In the summer of 1922, when tensions were building toward the outbreak of the civil war, Cosgrave was appointed Griffith's deputy while he was in London discussing the administration of the treaty.  On 12th August 1922, Griffith suddenly died.  In his place, Collins was chosen as president of the provisional government.  Ten days later, Collins was also dead.  These two ill strokes of fortune moved W.T. Cosgrave, the straightforward Dublin man of business, into the chief place in the government of the Irish Free State.  Griffith had been a national figure since the turn of the century.  Michael Collins was the adored hero of the masses.  Cosgrave was almost unknown in comparison.

      Troubled times need heroes, but stable administration needs something else.  When the government came together again, Cosgrave made it plain that what was now required to run the country was not the clash of personalities, but effective teamwork.  There was a newly drafted constitution to be passed by the Dáil, a military campaign to finish, the cost of the civil war - estimated at the then astonishing sum of £7 million - as well as all the normal business of good government.  Some of his cabinet, such as Kevin O'Higgins, were strong men in their own right, but Cosgrave held them all together.  But more than that, he managed, through the appointment of Protestants and former Unionists to the Senate, to bring the Protestant minority into the councils of the Free State.  The appointments to the civil service, the judiciary, and the Senate reflect merit rather than friendship, religion, or politics.

      The civil war petered out and ended.  In September 1923 Cosgrave was welcomed to the League of Nations as the representative of the Irish Free State, and the following month he attended a conference of the Dominions, those self-governing states, such as Canada, South Africa, and Australia, that formed what later became the British Commonwealth.

      With the end of the fighting, order returned to Ireland and the task of rebuilding began.  Finances were a pressing concern, and there were handled in a careful, even mean manner.  But after the government had decided to keep the size of the force in line with peaceful conditions some army officers mutinied, and Cosgrave faced down what might have been a very serious threat to the new democracy from the military and the right wing.  A few months later another minister took over without a fuss.  Unlike Collins or de Valera, Cosgrave had no messianic ambitions, but his steady course and good sense won overseas admirers of the new state.

      It was under Cosgrave that the great task of building the Shannon hydroelectric plan was begun.  Though the taxes were high, the government spoke of free electricity in a decade, a promise it could not hope to keep.

      Cosgrave's party in the Dáil faced opposition only from the Labour party and some smaller groups.  The main body of the real opposition, de Valera's party, and the other republicans were outside the Dáil.  This was not a healthy situation and could not long continue.  In August 1927 the minister of justice, Kevin O'Higgins, identified by many as the real strongman of the new state, was assassinated by a republican splinter group.  Legislation was passed that forced anyone standing for election to take their seat if they won.  This forced the hand of de Valera and Fianna Fáil, and they came in out of the cold.  In October an election left Cosgrave's party the largest.  But a coalition of other parties could now outvote the government.  With the support of the Farmer's Party he maintained a narrow majority.

      In early 1928 Cosgrave paid a state visit to the United States, where he was received with great warmth not only by the Irish-American community, but also by President Calvin Coolidge.  He addressed the Senate and then went on to visit Canada before returning in triumph to Ireland.  He had achieved a recognized place for Ireland in the community of nations.  It was his greatest moment.

      In the election of 1932 de Valera gained a narrow majority, which he improved by quickly calling another election in 1933.  Cosgrave, however, remained the leader of his party, but these were to be troubled days.  His was by nature a conservative party, but it harboured within it a right wing that cast admiring glances at developments in Europe.  A fascist group under General Eoin O'Duffy, popularly called the Blueshirts, came into existence out of the Army Comrades Association, an anti-republican group.  There were street clashes between them and the republicans, by now a Communist group.

      De Valera acted with decision to deal with these elements.  Cosgrave split with O'Duffy, and something approaching normal politics was restored.  Ireland had had a very close brush with fascism and communism, but thanks to the leadership of de Valera and Cosgrave, avoided the disaster.

      Cosgrave was still party leader when the war broke out in September 1939.  He supported the measures of national unity, which the war entailed, until he retired from politics in 1945.

      His son, Liam Cosgrave, was the leader of Fine Gael, the successor party to his father's.  W.T. Cosgrave died in 1965, having lived to see the old divisions of the civil war effectively buried in the progress of the new Ireland.  That nation owed him a debt which the perspective of history will only enhance.  Though naturally cautious and careful, he carried his people through a perilous period, succeeding where a lesser man, or a more headstrong personality, would have failed.  For a quiet man, it was a great triumph.