By Stephen Collins
It was fitting that last October’s Parnell Society annual symposium on the theme of the Irish parliamentary tradition began with a focus on the political life of John Bruton, who died a year ago. Bruton was the only leader of the state in its first 100 years of independence who was clear and unambiguous about his support for constitutional nationalism as opposed to the Fenian/Republican tradition of 1916.
Other leaders of the state certainly acted in the best traditions of parliamentary democracy, but they didn’t challenge the narrative that violence was necessary to achieve independence. John Bruton was clear in his view that the Ireland of today owes far more to the democratic tradition of O’Connell, Parnell and Redmond than to violent republicanism. What troubled him was that the official ideology of the state elevates one and minimises the impact of the other.
In his book Faith in politics, published in 2016, he reflected on his time as taoiseach and his dealings with the republican movement when it had come to recognise that killing people was never going to bring about a united Ireland.
‘This led me to reflect on how misconceptions about history can distort how people deal with present realities and how national myths need to be rigorously questioned. Violence is all too easy to glorify. It simplifies what is complex. It forces people to take sides rather than to think things through. It is far too easy to develop a cult around those who died young and to ignore what was achieved by those who lived rather than died for their country.’
He worried in advance that 1916 commemorations would fuel the notion that Irish independence came about solely because of violence. He was critical of the failure to have high-profile commemorations of the third Home Rule Bill, which he thought might have enabled people to see the 1916 commemorations in a more rounded fashion.
That was why he always emphasised the role played by the Centre Party, the successor of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in the formation of Fine Gael, when most leading figures focused on the party’s debt to Cumann na nGaedheal. Some other leaders of the Irish state, including Jack Lynch, shared Bruton’s misgivings about the prominence given to the cult of violence to the near exclusion of the parliamentary tradition, but they didn’t challenge it.
When he became taoiseach in December 1994, after a unique set of circumstances, Bruton was presented with the challenge of presiding over the peace process initiated by Albert Reynolds, which had created the conditions for an IRA ceasefire a few months earlier. Despite his record of staunch opposition to the republican movement and its use of violence for political ends, he knew that he had to tread softly to bring republicans along the road to peace. Former cabinet secretary Paddy Teahon has recalled his surprise at being asked to accompany Bruton to his first meeting with Gerry Adams. The then taoiseach told him that he had decided not to bring his political adviser Seán Donlon, as that would have been like waving a red rag at a bull. Instead, he wanted someone by his side who could understand the republican perspective.
While republicans unsurprisingly never warmed to him, unionists did trust him, up to a point at least, and the result was the Framework Document agreed with John Major, which was an essential stepping-stone to the Good Friday Agreement.
His obvious delight at the official visit of Prince Charles to Ireland in 1995, the first by a senior British royal since independence, was pilloried by Bruton’s critics. However, his view of the importance of the royal visit was vindicated in later years by the significant role of Queen Elizabeth and King Charles in promoting political reconciliation and meeting with all strands of political opinion, including republicans.
While the IRA’s breach of the ceasefire in 1996 was a huge setback, by the time Bruton left office all the preparations had been made for its resumption and it was only a matter of timing. Charlie Flanagan, who opposed Bruton in each of the three heaves against him as party leader, said in a recent Irish Times podcast: ‘John Bruton was head and shoulders above his peers in terms of integrity, parliamentarianism and his vision for Ireland and Northern Ireland’.
John Bruton’s outstanding political virtue was his ability to challenge conventional wisdom, whether about the parliamentary tradition or more current issues facing the country. This characterised his approach as minister for finance to the horrendous mess in the public finances bequeathed to him by Charles Haughey’s first government. He began with a supplementary budget in July 1981, and followed it up with the infamous ‘children’s shoes’ budget of January 1982, which brought the Fine Gael/Labour coalition crashing down.
What is not widely known is that he introduced this measure against his own better judgement. Maurice O’Connell, the former secretary of the Department of Finance and governor of the Central Bank, in his memoir No complaints frankly admits that Bruton and his political adviser Peter Prendergast argued strongly against the imposition of VAT on children’s clothing and footwear. Department officials opposed this in trenchant terms, and O’Connell penned a hard-hitting missive to the minister arguing that there could be no exemptions to the VAT regime. One of his arguments was that the Revenue Commissioners would not be able to distinguish between large-size children’s shoes and small-size women’s shoes.
When Bruton died, former government press secretary Peter Prendergast contacted me to emphasise that they had both argued against VAT on children’s clothes and footwear but were overruled by Garret FitzGerald, who sided with the Finance officials. FitzGerald generated widespread derision in the aftermath of the budget defeat when he went public with the excuse about women and children’s shoes.
Despite the embarrassing budget defeat, Bruton never attempted to shirk his responsibility as the minister who introduced the ill-fated measure. He never dropped a hint, either openly or through inspired leaks, to suggest that he had actually been overruled. His third budget of 1987, which was also rejected by the Dáil when the Labour Party refused to support it, was far from being the failure as which it was widely portrayed at the time. In fact, it was a very deliberate attempt to chart a course out of the economic mess that his own government had failed to resolve. That budget paved the way for the country’s economic recovery when Ray McSharry implemented it in full—and added a few extra little cuts for good measure. The headline in the Irish Press the morning after that budget summed it up in one word: ‘McBruton’.
While he was motivated by idealism, Bruton also had the toughness required of any politician who makes it to the top. He faced three heaves against his leadership and fought each one with every weapon at his disposal.
He could also change his mind when political considerations dictated it. In 1992 he refused to consider coalition involving Democratic Left (DL), but when the opportunity arose two years later to go into government in a coalition involving DL he grabbed it and in government developed a warm working relationship with Proinsias de Rossa.
An overlooked but key aspect of Bruton’s approach to politics was his Catholic faith. In spite of the decline in religious observance during his lifetime and the various scandals that engulfed the Church, his faith was unwavering and underpinned his approach to public life. Despite his own reservations about the impact of divorce on society, he played an important role as taoiseach in the referendum to delete the prohibition from the constitution. His radio interview on the Sunday before the vote was widely regarded as decisive in swinging enough conservative voters into the ‘Yes’ camp. Abortion troubled him far more and he was prepared to risk long-standing personal and political friendships by speaking out against the Fine Gael government’s approach to the issue after 2011.
His Catholic faith also inspired his opposition to violence and his passionate support for the European Union as the greatest peace project in human history. His friend the Jesuit priest Bruce Bradly in his funeral eulogy noted that the many accounts in the media of the former taoiseach’s career celebrated a very gifted and genuinely likeable man who enjoyed a varied and successful career:
‘But anyone who knew him in a closer way realised that, underneath everything, he was a seriously religious man and this all-important aspect of his life and self-identity is largely missing from the public commentary. Any account of what he was about without central reference to his Catholicism is seriously incomplete … The truth is that he was an instinctive, reflective Catholic. He was rooted in his faith. His life cannot be understood properly apart from that. This was not a faith of slogans but a thoughtful faith lived out in his actions and choices, a faith that does justice, expressed in his life of public service.’
John Bruton’s commitment to constitutional politics and his rejection of violence stemmed from his faith. It underpinned his determination to try and bring the peace process to a successful conclusion and take the gun out of Irish politics once and for all. His role in the ultimate success of that process was an important contribution to the consolidation of the Irish parliamentary tradition of which he was so proud.
Stephen Collins is a columnist with and former political editor of the Irish Times.