Quiet reformer whose golf handicap was the least of his achievements

BY 1990, there was a general consensus that the office of president was worthy but dull, and there was no sign of debate or discussion in the 1980s about the possibilities of expanding the role of the president or a sense that its profile could or should be increased.

In June 1983, Gene Kerrigan, then a pioneering investigative reporter with Magill magazine, penned an amusing portrait of Paddy Hillery as president, observing that when he was about to become president in 1976 he had said, “I’m going into a vacuum that’s hard to explain”.

A former senior government minister and outgoing EEC commissioner, within two weeks of the resignation of his predecessor, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, he found himself an agreed presidential candidate, and within six weeks he was installed. It was a job he did not want, but he stayed for 14 years.