TCD professor, Basil Chubb dies

The author and former head of the political science department at Trinity College, Dublin, Prof Basil Chubb, has died aged 80.

Prof Chubb, a British-born war veteran, was regarded as one of Ireland's leading political academics. His best-known publication, The Government and Politics of Ireland, has been a core political text-book in universities for 30 years.

Among his other publications are A Source Book of Irish Government and The Politics of the Irish Constitution.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Prof Chubb was a regular contributor to RTÉ's television election coverage, and he was credited with generating a more sophisticated understanding of Ireland's political processes.

Born in Dorset in December 1921, he was educated at Salisbury and Merton College, Oxford, where he read history.

He was only there a year when the outbreak of war found him in the Royal Air Force, flying Lancaster bombers over Germany.

In February 1944, he was shot down, captured and incarcerated as a prisoner-of-war, where he spent the remaining years of the war.

At the end of the conflict, he returned to university to finish his history degree, which he followed up with a doctorate in politics.

In 1948, he was appointed lecturer in politics at Trinity, and subsequently served as bursar of the college, before becoming professor of political science in 1960. In 1991, he retired as head of the department.

As well as working in academia, Prof Chubb served on a number of State bodies.

He acted as chairman of the employer-labour conferences, first established in 1970, to bring order to the shambles of industrial relations which existed at the time.

For two decades he presided over national wage agreements and helped to create a culture of understanding and respect between employers and unions.

He also chaired the Hospital Trust Board for a time in the late 1970s. A dispute with the then minister for health, Mr Charles Haughey, caused him to leave the post.

Prof Chubb is survived by his wife, Orla, and daughter Katie. A funeral service is to take place tomorrow at Trinity College Chapel.