Name: Jack Lynch
Party: Fianna Fáil
Terms: November ’66-March ’73, July ’77-May ’79
So remember when Michael Jordan quit basketball and became a baseball player as depicted in the documentary Space Jam? Imagine if, instead of being awful, he had gone on to become one of the best players in that sport too. Then imagine he ran for election and became one of the most popular presidents in US history. That’s pretty much Jack Lynch.
Also, instead of Bugs Bunny, Jack Lynch was aided by Daithí Lacha, Ireland’s first cartoon character. He was terrible.
Born in Cork, Lynch was an avid sportsman who excelled in both Gaelic Football and hurling. Gaelic Football is a version of football that allows hand-contact and where points and goals are both scored. Hurling is thirty men armed with clubs dancing with death itself. Lynch became the first man in history to captain both a senior hurling team and a senior gaelic football team and also the first and so far only athlete to win six consecutive All-Ireland finals and that is awesome and I don’t even like sport.
Not surprisingly, Fianna Fáil were very interested in running the hugely popular Lynch as a candidate and he joined the Dáil in 1948, eventually becoming Minster for Education where he spear-headed such crazy left initiatives such as allowing married women to work as teachers and permitting Jewish students to wear religious headgear in class.
Jack Lynch’s premiership came about, as most good things in this life do, as a result of fear and loathing of Charles Haughey. Taoiseach Séan Lemass resigned in 1966 and for the first time in its history there was a real leadership vacuum in the party. There were three candidates to replace Lemass; noted shark with legs Charles Haughey, Neil “The guy from the Arms Crisis who wasn’t Charles Haughey” Blaney and a guy called George Colley. Lemass was so horrified at the idea of Charles Haughey running the party that he went to Lynch to try and convince him to enter the leadership race.
“You’ve got to do something Jack! Haughey’s an amoral monster! He’ll destroy the party, maybe even the nation!”
“Isn’t he your son in law?”
“And?”
Lynch somewhat reluctantly entered the race and Haughey and Blaney, realising which way the winds were blowing, smartly bowed out of the race. George Colley, however, didn’t have a clue which way the winds were blowing and stayed in the race, losing to Lynch by 52 votes to 19.
Last time Lynch trounced someone that badly they were wearing a Kilkenny jersey. Boom.
He didn’t want the job. He hadn’t asked for the job. But he had the job and by God he was going to make the most of it and Lynch proved himself one of our most effective and influential Taoisigh, ruling the nation with the kindly, patrician authority of a fifties sitcom dad.
I mean look at him! He’s smoking a PIPE! A PIPE FOR GODS SAKE!
The country was fortunate to have Lynch at the helm during possibly the most dangerous period in the State’s history since the Civil War; the onset of the Troubles. With the North going full on Bosnia, Lynch made an address to the nation (something very few Taoisigh have done) where Honest Jack told it like it was; The situation was a result of decades of anti-Catholic discrimination, the RUC had lost all credibility as a neutral police force, bringing British troops would only make things worse, time to call in the UN. He also included a line which made many people on the other side of the border very antsy, saying that Ireland “could no longer stand by” while Catholic neighborhoods were being attacked, which was taken as a hint that he planned to invade.
Of course, Lynch never planned to invade Northern Ireland.
I mean, sure, he had a plan to invade Northern Ireland called “Operation Armageddon” which would have involved commando teams of Irish special forces sabotaging strategic Northern Irish positions as a prelude to a full on invasion by the Irish army but that was just as a hypothetical. He never actually planned on using it, not least because invading a member of NATO is a real good way to get your teeth kicked in. Instead, Lynch responded to the crisis by establishing field hospitals on the border to treat as many refugees as possible while exerting as much political pressure as possible on the British government to get the situation under control. His leadership in this time of crisis was mature, measured and restrained and one can only shudder at what might have happened if someone else had been in charge during this time…
OH GOD. OH GOD. OH GOD. *breathes into paper bag*
Lynch also oversaw Ireland’s entry into the EEC (the precursor to the EU), and frankly could have spent the rest of his term snorting ground-up puppies and quaffing the tears of orphans from a brandy snifter and still have been one of the best Taoisigh on the strength of that achievement alone. Instead though, he devoted his energies to providing free secondary school education, free school transport and a raft of measures to help single mothers and deserted wives. It wasn’t all good though. I’ve already described the Arms Crisis in Haughey’s entry and while Lynch’s government survived that scandal it did contribute to Fianna Fáil’s defeat in 1973 when Lynch lost to Liam Cosgrave for some ungodly fucking reason. As leader of the opposition, Lynch maintained sky-high popularity to the point where he was nicknamed “the Real Taoiseach” (oooooooh someone get Liam Cosgrave to the burn ward).
By 1977 the Irish people presumably sobered up, screamed “Oh God what did we do!?” and swept Lynch back into power. Lynch’s second government had to grapple with a fairly awful economy and while they managed to get unemployment down a bit they were faced with waves of street protests, the oil crisis and a deficit level of 17.6% which everyone though was really scary and oh, oh, you sweet summer children.
Making matters worse for Lynch, it was revealed in an American newspaper that he had agreed with Margaret Thatcher that British security forces could make use of Irish airspace near the border which put many of the more republican Fianna Fáilers in open revolt. Lynch was ready to throw in the towel, but was worried about potentially leaving the party in the hands of Charles Haughey. George Colley (remember him?) approached Lynch and asked him to retire early so that the party could hold a snap election, thereby catching Haughey unawares.
That’s right.
George Colley, the guy dumb enough to go up against Pipe-Smoking Irish Michael Jordan, was going to catch Charles “Machiavelli” Haughey unawares.
Guess if he caught him unawares.
Go on.
You’ll never guess.
*Fucking Imperial Fucking March Fucking Plays*
Lynch continued to serve as a TD until 1981 when he retired. He enjoyed a quiet retirement with his beloved wife Máirín until 1999 when he passed away, his funeral in Cork drawing some of the biggest crowds in the city’s history. He was, in the words of his old political rival Liam Cosgrave, “the most popular Irish politician since Daniel O’Connell”.
Pros
- It is remarkably difficult to find anyone with a bad word to say about him and his enormous personal charisma was a huge asset to both Fianna Fáil and the country in general. Lynch’s predecessor. Even Terrence O’Neill, the Unionist leader of Northern Ireland said: “I do not believe one could have a better Taoiseach than Mr. Lynch. It is not for nothing that he is known in the South as “Honest Jack”. Jeez O’Neill, if you love him so much why don’t you just marry him?
Terrence O’Neill. Thinking about Jack Lynch.
- I feel duty bound to remind you of the pipe.
PIPE.
Cons
- Tried to abolish proportional representation in favour of a first-past-the post system. PR is the best voting system in the world and this would basically have been the electoral equivalent of exchanging your top-of-the-line smartphone for two cups and a piece of string. Thankfully, he failed.
- The arms crisis. You know when you’re watching the old Transformers cartoon and you find yourself saying “Just shoot Starscream. Just shoot Starscream. He’s betrayed you already. He’ll betray you again. He’s probably thinking about betraying you right now. Just shoot Starscream.”? Replace “Shoot Starscream” with “Fire Haughey” and that’s pretty much the feeling I’ve been getting throughout this project. Lynch should have shit-canned Haughey within five seconds of hearing what he’d been up to and never allowed him to darken Fianna Fáil’s door again.
unshavedmouse 
While I will agree that by all accounts (and by “all accounts” I mean this single blog entry) Jack Lynch seems like a damn fine Taoiseach, his pipe picture must come in second to the opening picture of Sean Lemass and HIS pipe. I mean, Lemass has smoke tendrils in his picture!
But I might be biased because in his “pipe picture,” Jack Lynch looks a heck of a lot like Colin Mochrie. It’s not just me, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Mochrie
I actually kind of like Whose Line Is It, but maybe that’s just me.
In any case, I looked up Lemass’s smoking picture and found that Mouse apparently has a rival: http://catmalojin.com/2015/01/11/ranking-irelands-taoisigh-in-order-of-coolness/
BLOG WAR!
The color photo of him makes him look like Donald Pleasance, but the b&w photo is totally Colin Mochrie.
I didn’t know about all of the good things Lynch had done, but I am almost one hundred per cent positive that the decision for free education was taken by Lemass’ government (though it took a while to implement). And, given how terrible a husband Haughey was by all accounts, the Lemass connection may actually have been WHY he was so desperate to keep Haughey from the top job.
Cool, seems you guys got lucky enough that electing a non-politician celebrity actually worked out for you. Unlike this continent which instead got Mister Unleash-The-Hasbro-On-The-Networks. Though who knows, maybe you’ve got a few followers who like the Gipper. In any case, “Honest Jack” definitely seems nice enough, letting people wear what their religion would have them wear, unlike *some*one. *gives a glare in Ottawa’s general direction*
Interestingly enough, hurling is one of those seemingly obscure overseas things I happen to know about, in this case because “Hurley” is the last name of a school friend of my sister’s. Though I admit I’m unfamiliar enough with the game to wonder why everybody playing appears to also be the referee. Other lands, other customs, right? And speaking of sports, looks as if Colley really dropped the balley here. Though Lynch did too, not giving Shark Guy the boot and leaving him high and dry (that Transformers bit made me laugh). And it was kind of dumb trying to change the election to first-past-the-post. I envy you guys for getting to have that system, unlike the system *some*one loves taking advantage of and plans on enforcing the preservation of, likely to allow for his abusing the hell out of it. *shoots optic daggers at the Centre Block*
Did I mention I’m not too happy with my country’s leaders right now?
I picked that up, yeah. Canada is also FPTP? But you guys seemed so cool? How you been buddy, haven’t heard from you in a while.
Been kind of swamped with school. I’m pretty behind on blog readings, I know, but trust me, I’m waiting getting to your sequel with bated breath.
And yeah, Canada’s starting to look less cool than I thought it was, I think being stuck in bed next to an elephant will do that to you. Though honestly, I have no idea whose idea it was to get this goon we have now in office, but it was pretty clearly a mistake the country’s paying dearly for, considering how dirty the party fights to keep the helm. I hope the more sensible population will manage to get a party change so we can hope to get the election repaired (all the other parties say they’ll bring Proportional Representation, though I’m not sure how much I’m trustin’ Justin to keep his word).