Three generations served their country with skill and integrity
Politics was in the Lenihan blood. Brian Jnr’s grandfather Paddy took the treaty side in the Civil War, and was an admirer of Michael Collins. In later years, attracted by the brilliance of Séan Lemass, he joined Fianna Fáil and ran for Westmeath county council.
His son Brian qualified as a barrister and was quickly recognised in political circles as a smart, engaging prospect. In 1961, he was elected to Dáil Éireann for Longford-Westmeath and immediately installed as a parliamentary secretary, the equivalent of a junior minister today. Four years later, in a highly unusual development, he was joined in the Dáil by his father.
Brian Snr’s sister, Mary O’Rourke, won a seat in 1982. Later, his sons, Brian Jnr and Conor, would also serve in the Dáil, adding to a remarkable family record.
Brian Snr and O’Rourke became the first brother and sister to serve together in an Irish Cabinet. Over the course of his career, he served in eight different ministerial portfolios. He came of political age in the 1960s, when he, Charlie Haughey and Donagh O’Malley were regarded as the new face of Fianna Fáil, young, brash, and full of ideas.
Those who knew Brian Snr say he wore his intelligence lightly, and, like his son, was highly popular. He was always up for appearing in the media, a thankless but vital role in the party at the time. On one such occasion in the 1980s, during a debate on emigration, he said the island wasn’t big enough for everybody, bringing much wrath down on his head.
In 1987, he became ill and was diagnosed as suffering from liver disease. His condition required a transplant. Haughey, who was then Taoiseach, set up a fund to pay for the operation at a leading US health facility, the Mayo Clinic.
Years later it emerged that Haughey plundered the fund to the tune of nearly €250,000. A total of €336,000 was raised for the operation, but the cost was only €88,000. Haughey trousered most of the difference.
None of that was known at the time. Brian Snr had the operation in May 1989 and, a month later, while recuperating in the USA, stood to retain his Dáil seat in Dublin West. Despite being unable to campaign personally, he won comfortably. When he entered the Dáil chamber on his first day back, he was afforded a standing ovation.
In 1990, Brian Snr sought to round off his career by running for the Presidency. Despite winning the most first-preference votes, he lost to Mary Robinson in the second round. During the campaign, a tape emerged that revealed he had rung the Áras in 1982, on the fall of a Fine Gael/Labour government, to urge president Paddy Hillary not to dissolve the Dáil. Such a move would have constituted interference in the President’s function.
In the ensuing controversy, Fianna Fáil’s junior coalition partner, the Progressive Democrats, demanded that Haughey sack Brian Snr as Defence Minister and Tánaiste. Haughey complied.
He was defeated in the Presidential election, but he remained on as a TD, fighting one more election in 1992. He died on November 1, 1995, at the age of 64. The tone of the tributes paid to him was remarkably similar to those that have been paid to his son.
Brian Snr’s constituency colleague said he had been a shining light of the vocation of politics.
“Not even his most critical opponents — Brian didn’t have any enemies — ever alleged that he was in politics for anything but the highest motives,” said Austin Currie, his other rival in the 1990 presidential election.
Brian Jnr won his father’s seat in the bye-election that followed. In 2006, when Haughey died, Brian Jnr was asked by Haughey’s family to read at the funeral mass. The gesture was believed to have been Haughey’s idea prior to his death, in an attempt to mend wounds with the family of one of his oldest friends, whom he had badly let down.
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