Authors: Noël Browne
On my return to the Dáil, deeply moved and shocked by what I had seen, I called on de Valera to resign for his neglect while in government for sixteen years. There was uproar, as always,
when there was the slightest hint of criticism of that great panjandrum of Irish life, but privately many on the opposition benches felt shamed by my disclosures. An enquiry into the state of the
workhouses was later set up in my department, and my findings supported. We submitted proposals to McGilligan from the Department of Health for funds to remedy the great scandal, and without any
serious resistance he agreed to the introduction of a financial aid scheme for local authorities. This was to lead to a considerable improvement, many of the workhouses properly coming to merit the
name of ‘county homes.’ I was grateful to McGilligan for his sympathy and help with this problem, so close to my heart.
McGilligan had one strange weakness. As we came to the end of the financial year, and the budget approached, he appeared to melt into an orgy of inaction and self-pity, skipping Cabinet meetings
or arriving late. He clearly dreaded the ‘loaves and fishes’ job of trying to reconcile our many conflicting claims in such a multi-party government. In financial terms, he was a
conventional traditionalist. Balance the books, pay your way, cut capital expenditure, prime the private enterprise pump, and all will be well. Because of his clear panic on these occasions, the
Cabinet decided to establish a sub-committee of members of the Cabinet who would help formulate his budget.
There was the surprising fact that this paragon could be erratic and at times a pitiful victim of swinging moods, from a euphoric, bubbling, story-telling, Bar Library raconteur to a face
‘as long as a wet week’ with long, gloomy silences.
T. J. Murphy, Minister for Local Government, was probably the most dedicated and hard-working member of the Inter-Party Cabinet, but his achievements have either been ignored,
minimised, or blatantly filched from him. Murphy was a Labour deputy from Cork in his late fifties, a quiet self-effacing man with a detailed knowledge of local government laws and institutions. He
seemed to have much the same sense of awed disbelief as I in finding himself at the centre of real power; he could now do the work he most enjoyed, improving the living conditions of ordinary
people. He was an unhealthily pale, spectacled, slightly hunch-backed, frail figure. Possibly he was chosen by Norton because of his quiet, unspectacular manner, and his capacity to listen.
Murphy’s contributions at Cabinet were brief and for the most part sensible items of fact, nearly always about his favourite subject, local government affairs. He shared the Custom House
building with the Department of Health, working just across the corridor from me. His department had controlled health affairs for the whole community until the Department of Health had been
created in the late 1940s.
Early on I realised that Mr Murphy had been allocated enough money to build a hundred thousand local authority houses. I had also discovered that with the important restructuring of the use of
the Hospital Sweep funds, I would have some thirty million pounds to spend over a seven-year period. I proposed that our two departments should pool resources, because our joint building programme
would provide for an enormous expenditure for those times. Our idea was to try to attract home some of our recently-emigrated craftsmen and professional people. There would be a demand for all
kinds of architects, engineers, constructional and building operatives. In his heart, I suspect Tim would have been just as pleased if I would go away so that he could get on with his own work, but
in the end he was moved to agree with my proposal in the hope that possibly we would encourage some of our emigrants back. I reassured him that the Department of Health would do all the work,
mainly because we were fortunate to have in our department two journalists of outstanding originality and talent: Press Officer Aodh de Blacam, and Frank Gallagher.
Aodh de Blacam was an ardent admirer of de Valera, and wrote under the pen name ‘Roddy the Rover’ in
The Irish Press
. A large, gentle and charming man, he was a convert to
Catholicism. As my speech writer on non-political matters it was his job to research the history of a person, a site, a building, or institution, and work up a speech for me. On a journey across
Ireland to lay the foundation stone at Ballinasloe Portiuncula Hospital, I had had no time to glance through my speech until just before I stood up to speak. Incredulously I heard myself orating,
‘Nisi dominus domum aedificat frustu laborant qui aedificant’ (Unless the Lord build the house, the builders labour in vain). The audience was astounded. Were they by any chance at High
Mass by mistake? The hospital was to be run by the Franciscan nuns and the whole speech was in a similar devout and reverential style. Bravely I waded through to its thoughtful concluding
benediction on the enterprise; my audience visibly resisted the temptation to bless themselves and say Amen. A shame-faced Bishop, Dr Dignan, followed me with a few unspectacular mundane words of
welcome. A good friend, he smilingly complained to me, ‘Dr Browne, I should have made your speech, and you mine.’
Aodh, a feverent Gaelic speaker, told me that in the early days of the formation of Fianna Fáil he had pleaded with de Valera to name the
Irish Press
newspaper in Irish,
Scéal Eireann
or something similar, but de Valera, the hard business man, never permitted romantic Irish proclivities to interfere with financial or political reality.
The second journalist, Frank Gallagher, was an entirely different personality. He was a fanatical supporter of Fianna Fáil and worshipped de Valera, who had the highest regard for him,
using him as head of censorship all during the precarious war years. It was a job which needed a particularly able journalist, and Gallagher, if somewhat over-zealous, did it well. He was sent to
Health because it was a harmless, non-controversial department under an innocuous uncontroversial minister. We were lucky to be blessed with de Blacam; to have Frank Gallagher as well gave us great
scope to do something about the dowdy, unimaginative departmental information services.
The Government Information Service had always been dull, even in its propaganda. Our journalists on the other hand thought of everything: multi-coloured posters, leaflets illustrated with Rowel
Friers drawings or photographs by Adolf Morath, catchy phrases and slogans. Competitions were held for imaginative wall posters, one of which, a ‘Wanted for Murder’ hygiene poster
picturing the common house fly, was borrowed for use in a similar campaign in Britain because of its excellence. A particularly striking booklet highlighted our building programme, putting across
the messages ‘Ireland is Building’ and ‘Come Home and Help.’ Inside were models and architectural drawings of projected sanatoria, hospitals, houses, clinics. The whole
programme, with its objective of the repatriation of emigrants, was an exhilarating microcosm of the possibilities if only all government departments could do likewise. We employed Eamonn Andrews
to broadcast at peak listening hours. Indirectly the message was conveyed to emigrants through sisters, mothers and wives listening at home. Many emigrants did return but, as always, only for a
time. Cynical stagnation recurred on Fianna Fáil’s resumption of office.
On the cover of our booklet we had shown a picture of Cashel Hospital, one of the very few which had been built during the Fianna Fáil period of office. With some justification, although
we had in fact included it in good faith as an illustration of what we hoped to do, Lemass (surprisingly, since he was never a petty man), exploded in a protest at our ‘misrepresentation of
the facts.’ As it happened, his protest and the heated debate on the issue which ensued helped to publicise further the optimistic overall message of ‘Ireland is Building’. On
that occasion I was grateful to John Costello who, on the night of the debate, took on the reply to Mr Lemass — I was certainly not up to that level of competition yet. Good lawyer that he
was, he had no trouble with his brief.
A sceptical Fianna Fáil deputy, Bob Briscoe, a well-known betting man, dismissed as impossible our challenging hospital building programme. Presuming that it was a safe bet, he promised
across the Dáil chamber, ‘I’ll be the first to raise my hat to you, if you carry through these claims.’ Some seven or eight years later, both of us still in the
Dáil, I had the pleasure of inviting Bob to ‘take off his hat to the Department of Health, for work done and seen to be done.’ Our hospitals all over the Republic were there to
prove it.
I was interested to watch John Garvin, a Joyce scholar and Tim Murphy’s departmental secretary, as I lobbied and gently bullied his Minister with bizarre proposals to publicise our joint
programme — recall that we were the junior ministry. He hovered apprehensively behind his minister, as if to save him from doing something silly. I would like to have known his private
beliefs about our programme.
Sadly, one summer evening in Cork in 1949, Tim Murphy in full spate (which was still mild enough) was asking for continued support for his programme for ‘housing homeless people.’ He
was overcome by a severe heart attack, and died shortly afterwards. He was a good man, and largely unnoticed and unremembered, except no doubt by his own.
James Dillon was a notable personality in the first Coalition Cabinet. For one thing, right or not, he was the only Irish politician who had taken a principled stand against
our neutrality in the Second World War when it had been the unanimous decision of all our other politicians. His lonely and courageous opposition had forced his resignation from the Fine Gael
party. Though I, as a doctor, volunteered for war service, I shared the general belief that the nation as a whole, if at all possible, should stay neutral. Other than Nazi Germany, no nation gladly
leads its civilian population into a modern war. Yet, as a loner myself, I admired Dillon for that show of independence.
Expensively educated, at first glance Dillon seemed endowed with rich natural talent. He was a wealthy shopkeeper and a member of a distinguished Irish political family. He was at all times
courteous and humane, and had a delightfully rich, well-rounded speaking voice. He favoured an old-fashioned declamatory speaking style, giving the impression that he was more concerned about how
he sounded than what he said. He was a strong Anglophile and fancied himself as the Dáil’s answer to Winston Churchill. A well-read and scholarly man, he admired Edmund Burke, whose
regret for the fall of the French monarchy and the ensuing popular revolution he seemed to share.
On closer study it was apparent that, although a clear, reasoned and lucid speaker, he had nothing to say which had not already been said. He was a shallow person, with an unoriginal and
uncreative mind. For the most part he refashioned other people’s ideas for use in support of his consistently mean, conservative, small-town prejudices. In terms of British House of Commons
politics, he would probably have liked to be considered as a Liberal, but in present terms would most likely be considered as a conventional Thatcherite. On one occasion, with the kindliest of
intentions, fearful of my reforming zeal, he warned me against the dangers of making too many political sacrifices in defence of the welfare of the masses.
A middle-sized, impressive figure of a man, who wore well-tailored dark greys and blues, he carried a pince-nez on the end of a black ribbon. His great black artist-style hat was a modification
of what in those days was known as a ‘county manager’s hat’. He smoked heavily, using a Noël Coward-style long black cigarette holder: a histrionic personality, anxious to
impress. The ephemeral nature of his mind in contrast to his impressive presence was later illustrated by his disastrous brief leadership of Fine Gael for which at first sight he would appear to
have been the ideal choice.
On the formation of the coalition, Dillon was already a well-seasoned experienced politician. In spite of his temporary wartime defection, he was once again a respected member of Fine Gael.
During my early days I was quite overwhelmed by what I believed to be his breadth of knowledge on virtually all subjects discussed in Cabinet. So stark and clear-headed did these opinions appear
that on occasions I wondered if he subscribed to the
Reader’s Digest
. For most of the early months in Cabinet, his reasonant booming voice would drown out all but the most
determined.
My introduction to him was spectacular and memorable. It was my first day in the Dáil; the shattering reality that ‘they’ were no longer the government, that de Valera was no
longer Taoiseach, irresistibly percolated into the minds of all of us. There is little doubt now that de Valera was overcome with the shock of it; for the first time in his loquacious life, he
appeared to be at a loss for words. His deputy, Lemass, was chosen to defend Fianna Fáil’s defeat; I was greatly impressed by his resilience and courage. Jack McQuillan called it
arrogance, and he was probably right. Lemass in his peroration called on the new young government to have no doubt that their days as a government would be short — ‘Government affairs
had been handed over in financially sound order.’ Exultantly and prophetically he concluded, ‘See that you hand it back that way.’ James Dillon was picked to speak on our behalf.
Bubbling with indignation and the sense of occasion, he rose to reply. His speech too was exultant. It was a celebration of the victory and the meeting of minds in the multi-party coalition. Within
it, I felt, lay the seeds of Dillon’s hoped-for one-party state. ‘Doomed be damned to you’, rang out the challenge from our Demosthenes. ‘This government will
last.’
It was during his intervention on the proposed spending by the Department of Local Government on local authority housing that I came to understand the hostility of men of property towards such
capital spending. With considerable detail Dillon itemised each overt or hidden subsidy provided by the state to working-class householders. His grievance was that these subsidies originated in the
taxes paid by him as a property owner. This speech first alerted me to the ‘them’ and ‘us’ nature of the forces in the coalition cabinet. Wholesome aspirations are
commonplace; a will to pay for them rare. I remembered that individual intervention by Dillon as a kind of declaration of war on the beliefs which I held about an egalitarian society.