after this short interval, the benefit of hindsight.
Those looking for a definitive account of Brian Lenihan’s life or detached judgement of his actions have come to the wrong place. In each of the following essays, the authors themselves set out their own particular connection to Brian Lenihan. It is for readers, each of whom will also come with their own pre-determined view of the man and the period, to decide the extent to which the contributors can be objective or the extent to which they may be over-compensating for being perceived as coming with inevitable bias.
While Brian Lenihan’s tenure as Minister for Finance will fascinate readers most, this book ranges over his entire political career and, indeed, covers non-political aspects of his life and his personal formation. The choice of contributors was not strategic or deliberate. In most cases, they were obvious. A number of people were asked to write up to five thousand words about the Brian Lenihan they knew and their workings or contact with him. There were some who declined, honestly acknowledging that, although they liked and respected him, they felt they knew him insufficiently to justify writing in this volume.
Through a combination of design and happenstance, the final line-up of contributors collectively gives a comprehensive if inevitably benign picture of Brian Lenihan’s political life and impact.
Harman Murtagh chronicles how Brian was shaped and initially schooled in Athlone, Mary McAleese and Rory Montgomery, as teacher and fellow student respectively, give some insight into how Brian’s years in Trinity College shaped him for later challenges, in which each of them had ringside seats. Mary O’Rourke, his aunt and later a fellow parliamentarian, was similarly positioned to give insights on his youth and later career. Feargal O’Rourke, Brian’s cousin and himself a leading expert on taxation issues, gives both a personal reflection and professional assessment of Brian.
Cathy Herbert was Lenihan’s closest political adviser in all his ministries, and along with Alan Ahearne, was part of his core team within the Department of Finance. Martin Mansergh was his junior minister in that department, while Eamon Ryan and Paul Gallagher engaged and befriended him from different perches around the cabinet table. Ray Mac Sharry had been minister for finance during a previous economic crisis and Brian valued his advice. Patrick Honohan was appointed by Brian as Governor of the Central Bank and he worked closely with him in that role. John Trethowan was asked by Brian to establish the Credit Review Office. Christine Lagarde, the then French finance minister, was a close colleague in the decision-making councils of the European Union, while the late Canadian finance minister, Jim Flaherty, bonded with him at gatherings of the OECD.
Brian Murphy and John Mullen offer insights into two significant by-elections in Brian Lenihan’s life and his undoubted talents for electioneering.
The various contributions draw a series of pictures of Brian in different times and places: a bright and curious young student sharing coffee in the Trinity Commons; a strong college debater, who later became a strong parliamentary performer; an ambitious young politician; a hardworking and innovative Minister for Children and then Minister for Justice and then an initially rattled, but ultimately fearless Minister for Finance.
For my own part, I didn’t actually get to know Brian Lenihan until about a year after he entered Dáil Éireann. It was at a point when I was easing out of politics and he was easing out of the Law Library. Our paths had never really crossed in Leinster House or the Four Courts, but, from a distance, he seemed a jovial, able, bright barrister turned politician. My first ever extended conversation with him happened by chance when he offered me a lift back to Dublin from a by-election campaign in Cork in October 1998. Over the two-and-a-half hour journey, we covered a range of political topics, including the merits of various government and opposition politicians and long-term political trends in Ireland, England and the United States. We then covered a range of historical topics. All of this was interspersed with commentary from Brian on the social and political geography of various towns we were passing through or by-passing en route.
Having worked in politics since college, I had met many senior politicians and, indeed, had become cynical about most of them. It was clear, however, that Brian Lenihan was unique. The man’s intellectual capacity was extraordinary and impossible to understate. The depth and breadth of his reading was phenomenal. He also had an impressive capacity to assess political nuances and shifts. One only had to engage with him for a short period to see that he also had a passionate commitment to politics and a yearning to apply his undoubted intellectual talents and political skills to improving the country.
I lived in Carpenterstown at this time and Brian developed an occasional habit of calling at the end of the day to reflect on the current political events, which often led to long, late night discussions.
In conversation, Brian could sometimes seem distracted, but only because his mind was like a computer with too many windows open simultaneously, such was his urgency in conversation and appetite for discourse. When talking to him, you might get a sense from his facial expression that he was no longer interested or engaged only to realise from some later reference that he had been following every detail.
A few years later, my wife moved to work in Belfast and the house in Carpenterstown became no more than a dormitory for me midweek. When Lenihan would telephone to say that he was dropping over, I would offer to shop or dial something to eat. He always declined and would again decline any offer of food on arrival. However, he would then proceed to spend much of his time in the house walking in and out to the kitchen scouring the fridge or presses for nibbles. During one such sequence of talking perambulation, I heard a shriek from the kitchen – he had stuck his hand into the under-used bread bin and found only green mouldy bread!
At this early stage in his political career, Brian was excited, active, engaged but impatient. Brian clearly, and in my view correctly, felt Bertie Ahern was thwarting his political advancement. Most politicians and commentators recognised Brian as cabinet material from the outset, but Ahern delayed appointing him even to junior ministerial office. Chairing the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution certainly interested him and played to his strengths as a lawyer and consensus builder, particularly when the committee was tasked with dealing with the abortion issue, but he was impatient to have the direct impact on policy, which being a minister would bring.
He was also, at times, overwhelmed by the response he attracted from the Fianna Fáil grassroots or members of the public. Although a mere backbencher, he was often mobbed by well-wishers at Ard Fheiseanna or other events. He himself wondered whether this was merely a residue of the affection in which his late father had been held. The rest of us could see that it flowed from his own regular competent media performances and because he himself was seen as a rising star in the party, and even then as a future party leader.
Like all politicians, of course, he enjoyed this attention, but he was also nervous around it. He was a surprisingly shy man. This – and his occasional demeanour of intellectual distraction – sometimes gave rise to lazy suggestions that he was somehow remote or detached. This was simply nonsense. Brian had a passionate interest in people, their views, their concerns and their opinions. Above all, he had genuine empathy and never in a contrived sense that some politicians mastered.
When finally appointed a Minster of State with responsibility for Children in 2002, Brian quickly got stuck into a range of issues about which he was passionate, the details of which have been well chronicled by Jillian van Turnhout in her essay in this book. He continued as Minister for Children in 2005 when the portfolio was upgraded to a cross-departmental role enabling him, although not a member of the Cabinet, to attend cabinet meetings.
The day that Brian Lenihan was appointed Minister for Justice was, perhaps, the happiest of his political life. He thrived in the role; he loved the department, its officials, and working with the Garda Síochána. As well as implementing a programme of law reform, he viewed as an important part of his brief the need to make the right appointments at senior and middle-management level
