President Patrick Hillery - A career and life of dignity and courage

PRESIDENT Patrick Hillery, who died on Saturday aged 84, was of the generation who succeeded the revolutionaries-turned-politicians who shaped post-colonial Ireland in the second quarter of the last century.

He was one of the leaders of the generation who built modern Ireland. That generation inherited a divided, insular, largely bigoted and poorly educated country, ravaged by emigration and poverty. These challenges were exacerbated by the legacy of the second world war. Without the courage and idealism of that generation the Celtic Tiger would never have materialised. Access to education might have been denied to even more generations of Irish people. The social and economic evolution brought about by EU membership might have been delayed. The realisation that the north’s wretched situation could not be resolved by violence might not have been strong enough to prevent an even more catastrophic 30 years of conflict.

As a TD, as a minister, as our first European commissioner and as our sixth president, Patrick Hillery played a hands-on part in opening the doors of opportunity for generations of Irish people.