Bertie could learn from the events which led to Jack Lynch’s unseating

THERE was much discussion in recent weeks about the level of participation in science subjects for the Leaving Certificate.

Only 7,000 students took physics, but 20,000 took biology. Yet only 11,000 took history and it has attracted little attention.

Even students who would be interested in history won’t touch it, because the course is considered so detailed that it takes up so much time that other subjects suffer. I did not take history for the Leaving Certificate, because in 1963 our course concentrated on the period of St Patrick. It was more like mythology than history, as it had no relevance to modern life.

The history syllabus has changed radically since then, but it requires a knowledge of such detail that it is too time-consuming, and thus counter-productive in the all-important race for Leaving Certificate points. It is therefore easier to ignore history, but history itself teaches us that those who are ignorant of their past are doomed to repeat it.

It is amazing that a people who are so interested in politics could be so ignorant of their own history. A great many people think that the civil war here was fought over the partition issue, whereas that really had little to do with the conflict. Consequently, nobody should wonder why we keep making the same mistakes repeatedly. It is an indictment of the crazy attitudes that Department of Education has adopted towards history over the decades.

Michael McDowell has been having his problems over his garda protection, but the murderous attack on Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh on Wednesday might prompt him to think again. After all, one of his predecessors as Minister for Justice, Kevin O’Higgins, was assassinated here in 1927. Ironically, Michael McDowell’s maternal grandfather, Eoin MacNeill, was the sole witness of the murder, as he was going to Mass on that bright Sunday morning.

“I heard some shots coming from around the corner, in Cross Avenue,” he later recalled. “Immediately after that I saw a man half running half staggering across the road... Three men overtook him and began shooting at him, and he fell on the footpath beside the lamppost. One of the three went up to him as he lay and fired another shot into him.”

“Knowing that Kevin O’Higgins was staying in Cross Avenue, I had little doubt that he was the victim,” MacNeill continued. “I knelt down beside him. He was still quite alive but blind, one of the shots having gone through the front of his head. I began saying whatever prayers I thought suitable for a dying man to hear.”

O’Higgins recognised his voice as they had served in cabinet together until MacNeill’s retirement the previous year. “I want you to say that I forgive my murderers,” O’Higgins said to him. “Tell my wife I give her my eternal love.” He lived for little over five hours more.

If people had better memories, Noel Dempsey might not have had such a torrid time lately. Mary Laffoy certainly gave him a right bellyful of publicity.

There were times this week when the Minister was sounding a bit ragged, as the pressure was obviously getting to him. She said that she had plans to wind up her commission by 2005, but he had no faith in her timetable.

If Mary wants somebody to blame, she might try some of her colleagues who have been driving the whole judicial system in low gear for so long that the engine is in danger of seizing up and bringing the whole system to a grinding halt. Very few people begrudge payments to those who were abused in our institutions, but many do resent the extravagance of legal practitioners milking the system for their own selfish gain. Children were savagely abused by religious and other perverts in our institutions, but that should not give the legal profession a licence to screw the rest of society.

If political kite-flying were an Olympic sport, Noel Dempsey would be a gold medallist. He was the one who introduced the plastic bag tax, which was a novel proposal designed to cut down on plastic bags, rather than raise money.

He was also the one who first proposed the ending of the dual mandate that allowed politicians to sit in Leinster House and county councils, but his cabinet colleagues initially balked, because they did not have the guts to do the right thing in the face of independent opposition.

DEMPSEY has never lacked guts. As one of the youngest members of the Dáil, he was one of four Fianna Fáil backbenchers who called for Charlie Haughey’s removal in September 1991. They set the ball rolling and Charlie was gone within little over three months.

As the politicians were about to gather after the summer break in 1991, the Sunday Tribune published a survey of 51 backbench Fianna Fáil deputies. 24 wished Haughey to stay, but 13 indicated he should go, while the remainder refused to comment. Haughey was at the height of his power and prestige. Ireland had just enjoyed the Presidency of the European Union, so the figures really indicated softness in his support. Less than half of the backbenchers had come out in his favour.

Of course, the way things worked the 14 who refused to comment would probably support him once the pressure came on.

Fence-sitters inevitably wait around to jump on the bandwagon of the likely winner. They are the kind of so-called leaders who follow the crowd. The person with the guts to take a stand is much more admirable, though there is a saying in Leinster House that nobody ever talked their way into the Dáil, but many have talked their way out of it.

For the Taoiseach, the ominous signs do not portend for the near future, but for this time next year, after this country will have handed over the Presidency of the EU, and Fianna Fáil will have had to face the electorate in both local and European elections. Bertie has been around long enough to remember what happened in 1979.

Jack Lynch was at the height of his power, after being elected with the greatest majority since independence, having bought off the electorate with the promises of the infamous 1977 manifesto, which would have made even Bertie’s bunch look parsimonious.

The overall results of the European elections in 1979 were a disaster for Fianna Fáil, which won only 5 of the 15 seats, with less than 35% of the vote. It was the party’s worst showing in history.

Lynch dismissed the results as a traditional mid-term rebuke for the Government. Remedial action was needed, but his options were limited with Ireland about to assume the European Presidency during the second half of 1979.

The slump in the party’s popularity had many backbenchers fearing for their seats. They began sniping, and before Lynch could even hand over the European presidency, he was gone.

Remedial action is needed now also. History would seem to suggest that Bertie and Charlie McCreevy, two of those backbenchers who helped to push Lynch, may need all their wiles and experience to avoid a similar fate themselves in the coming year.