Garret the Gentleman

Garret at 80

Yesterday morning, as you probably know, saw the death of former Taoiseach Dr. Garret Fitzgerald. My shock and sadness at hearing the news may be surprising; the former because this was a visibly frail 85-year-old man who had been ill in hospital for weeks, the latter because not only did I not know the man, I was born four years after he ceased to be Taoiseach for the last time. Yet I believe I can explain both. I was shocked because Garret (and, like many people, my calling him "Garret" is a sign of affection, not disrespect), despite his age, had seemed in the past few years to have boundless physical and mental energy, constantly making public appearances on television and radio, and promoting the Lisbon Treaty (both times). My sadness stems from the deep affection I had for his character; a necessarily nebulous description, but one on which I hope to shed a little light.

On Twitter yesterday, I referred to him as "the last of the gentleman politicians". I've since come to rethink that label, mainly because it implies that there were others of his breed. While politicians of the generation prior to Garret's (including his father, Desmond Fitzgerald) were often men of good manners and breeding in public life (and they were, of course, almost solely men), they lacked Garret's many virtues. The importance of gentlemanly virtues, and what exactly constitutes a "gentleman", is something of a personal obsession. I would not dream of providing an exhaustive definition (though I am increasingly considering addressing the concept in a future post; until then, vir beātum is an excellent guide), but I fear that the label of "gentleman" is one that is increasingly viewed as old-fashioned, which is nonsense. A true gentleman does not seek to recapture the past, but applies himself to the present day, and this certainly sums up Garret.

So how was is that Garret was a gentleman? Let me count the ways. Firstly, he was an academic and an intellectual; a man to whom the overused word "genius" could perhaps be appropriately applied. His feats of memory are legend; from his single-handed calculation of schedules (and occasionally, anecdotally, flight paths) while working for Aer Lingus to his dinner-party conversation, well into his eighties, on topics from economics to culture. Garret was also a diplomat; polite, considerate and, in his own kindly but firm way, intransigent. First as Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time of the Sunningdale Agreement, then presiding over the Anglo-Irish Forum as Taoiseach, he was one of the first Irish politicians to genuinely recognise and appreciate the perspective of unionists. By all accounts, he was a lovely man in private; approachable to any who wished to discuss the issues of the day, and always with words of advice for all who sought it (Maria Farrell's wonderful personal account is well worth a look). I don't think any of these terms can be realistically applied to his great rival, Charles Haughey.

Garret the Ladies' Man

Naturally, I couldn't have gotten through this tribute without mentioning Haughey; the two appear as looming figures in each other's biographies. I've often thought they represent two major contradictory approaches to leadership; the firebrand populist and the sedate academic. From their time in UCD, the two were often set up against one another; in the documentary Seven Ages, Garret rather wryly notes that he tended to spend time with girls, while Haughey spent his with boys (note: I don't think he was actually claiming Haughey to be gay, but the image of Garret the Ladies' Man is one I'm not getting out of my head any time soon). Twenty years on from either of them being at the head of government, and posterity has already rewarded Garret. Few have anything good to say about the man who landed the country in debt and swindled money into his own private coffers (as well as handing those tricks on) – even after his death in 2006, the obituaries were generally rather equivocal. In Garret's case, no such equivocation has been forthcoming, and obituaries have duly listed out his achievements.

It has been noted across the board that Garret should have been at the table with Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday, given that he helped pave the way for her visit to a great extent. That he died mere hours after the Queen of England spoke Irish seems almost like a fitting end to his life. It was, after all, Garret who managed to face down Margaret Thatcher and her "Out, out, out" policy, and get her to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement. That he was able to "turn" the Iron Lady without any Irish cruisers being sunk surely deserves several statues in Dublin city centre. On a more local level, he was instrumental in instituting a more secular state, as well as what Alex Massie calls a "social revolution" – referenda on divorce and abortion, though both were defeated, opened up the debate on these issues. Garret was also given the unenviable task of rescuing the country from economic oblivion, largely at the hands of Fianna Fáil. No doubt Enda Kenny identifies with this notion of having to clean up FF's mess. In doing so, Garret was forced into bailing out the banks; a controversial decision, though it was dwarfed by the attempt by Brians Cowen and Lenihan to outdo it two decades later.

After retiring from office, and unlike almost every other Taoiseach in Irish history, Garret did not retreat from public life (a clear demonstration both of his genuine talent and desire to make the world better with his expertise). He was widely sought after as a commentator, and was a fixture on RTÉ's election analysis programmes from the first of these in the '70s right up to the last election a couple of months ago. In addition to this, his columns in The Irish Times were always essential reading. He used his unique perspective to weigh in on the issues of the day, often freely admitting to mistakes from during his own tenure, and his incredibly detailed and cogent economic and political analysis was often a breath of fresh air in the loud and crowded world of the opinion pages.

I believe that, in a few decades' time, the history books will praise Dr. Garret Fitzgerald as the great Taoiseach who was unsung in his own time. Certainly, he was one of the most loved political figures of the last decades, with his passing attracting the kind of unequivocal praise that is normally reserved for the relatively inoffensive figures of presidents. The British newspapers have been celebrating him as a great partner; the Irish ones as a great statesman. Perhaps we will see his like again; there are too few men and women of real learning and good manners, like Garret, in public life now. In difficult times, we need a role model like him, and he will be sorely missed. Ar dheis Dé go a raibh a anam.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement