Jack Lynch

Jack Lynch (born Aug. 15, 1917, Cork, County Cork, Ire.—died Oct. 20, 1999, Dublin) was an Irish politician who was taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland from 1966 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1979.

Lynch studied law and entered the civil service (Department of Justice) in 1936. He eventually decided on a legal career, was called to the bar (1945), resigned from the civil service, and practiced on the Cork circuit. He already enjoyed a national reputation as a sports hero—he had won five All-Ireland medals as a Cork hurler and another as a footballer—when he joined Fianna Fáil and won a seat in Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament) in 1948. He worked closely with Eamon de Valera in opposition (1948–51), and de Valera appointed him a parliamentary secretary in 1951–54, minister for the Gaeltacht (Gaelic-speaking districts) in 1957, and minister for education in 1957–59. When Seán Lemass succeeded de Valera as taoiseach in 1959, he made Lynch minister for industry and commerce and in 1965–66 minister for finance.

Lemass’s retirement in 1966 caused an internal party conflict over the succession that led to Lynch’s selection as a compromise candidate, a position he reluctantly accepted. In November of that year he became leader of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach. In June 1969 he became the only Fianna Fáil leader other than de Valera to win an overall majority in a general election. In 1969–73 Lynch played an important role when civil unrest led to the collapse of the government of Northern Ireland and posed a threat to the stability of the Irish state. He fired two cabinet ministers who were suspected of involvement in smuggling arms to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He also created a consensus in Irish party politics on a policy of conciliation and cooperation with the British government in seeking a solution to the Northern Ireland problem based on establishing power-sharing between the unionist majority and the Roman Catholic minority.

In 1972 Lynch won an 83 percent majority in a referendum on Ireland’s entry into the European Economic Community (now European Community, embedded in the European Union), and on Jan. 1, 1973, Ireland became a member. Although he was defeated in the 1973 elections, Lynch again demonstrated his remarkable popularity at the polls in 1977 when Fianna Fáil won their largest and their last overall majority. In December 1979, however, discouraged by challenges to his authority from party colleagues, Lynch resigned his leadership and soon after retired from politics. He served on a number of corporate boards after his retirement.