Michael J. O'Higgins, who has died aged 87, was a prominent member of a political dynasty which stretched back to Kevin O'Higgins and could also trace descent from the Irish Parliamentary Party of the 19th century through T.D. Sullivan.
He served for lengthy periods in the Dáil, Seanad and Dublin Corporation. He was an influential figure in the Fine Gael party who was overshadowed to some extent by his older brother, Tom, who served as a minister in various coalition governments, was a presidential candidate twice and eventually became chief justice of the Supreme Court and a judge of the European Court in Luxembourg.
Michael O'Higgins was identified with the conservative wing of Fine Gael while Tom was drawn to the liberal, social democrat tendency led by Declan Costello and later Garret FitzGerald. Michael was unashamed of his teenage membership of the Army Comrades' Association, or Blueshirts as they came to be called in the 1930s.
At a Fine Gael convention in Ballybay, Co Monaghan, in 1956 he declared that he had been a Blueshirt, still had it at home and "if it should be necessary to wear it again, I would be proud and glad to wear it". Those who wore the blue shirts did not do so to cause disturbance or strife but "in order to bring the various sections of the people together", he said.
He was born in Crookstown, Co Kildare, on November 12th, 1917. His father, Dr T.F. O'Higgins, was a brother of Kevin O'Higgins, a leading member of the Cumann na nGaedheal governments during the Civil War and its aftermath until he was assassinated in July 1927. Dr O'Higgins was a founder member of the Army Comrades' Association. He played a leading role in the formation of the coalition government after the 1948 general election and served in it as minister for defence and minister for industry and commerce.
Michael O'Higgins lived his early years in Portobello (today Cathal Brugha) Barracks, Dublin, where his father worked as an Army doctor. He and his brother, Tom, who was only a year older, were educated at St Mary's College, Rathmines, and Clongowes.
He qualified as a solicitor in 1940 and was elected to Dublin Corporation in 1945 and served on it for 10 years. He stood in the 1948 general election in Dublin South West and was elected to the Dáil along with his father and brother on the same day, a record which still stands.
Another record was made when in 1958 he married a fellow-TD, Brigid Hogan, a daughter of Patrick Hogan, the first minister for agriculture in the Free State.
O'Higgins lost his Dáil seat in the 1951 election but was later elected to the Seanad on the Administrative Panel. He regained his Dáil seat in 1954 and was re-elected in 1957 when his future wife was also elected for Galway South, a seat she held until 1977. They had nine children, five sons and four daughters.
In the 1961 general election O'Higgins moved from Dublin South West to Wicklow where Fine Gael was without a seat. He was elected and held a Fine Gael seat until 1969 when he was edged out by his party colleague, Godfrey Timmins.
Following the 1965 electoral defeat for Fine Gael, the leader, James Dillon, suddenly resigned and Michael O'Higgins moved immediately to put forward Liam Cosgrave as successor before the supporters of Declan Costello had time to mount a campaign. Cosgrave was elected the same day.
Coming up to the 1969 general election, there was increasing speculation about a Fine Gael-Labour pact, and Liam Cosgrave authorised O'Higgins to float the idea of a united front between the two parties based on Declan Costello's Just Society document. But Labour was on its "the Seventies will be socialist" tack and rejected the overtures.
When inter-party talks began again in early 1973, following Fianna Fáil's sudden decision to go to the country, O'Higgins who was then a senator was involved in the drawing up of a common programme which helped bring Fine Gael back to power for the first time since 1957. He was also director of elections.
He was rewarded with a Taoiseach's nomination to the Seanad and appointment as government leader of the upper house. He retained that post until 1977 when Fianna Fáil swept back into power. He retired from active politics in that year, as did his wife, Brigid, who lost her Dáil seat.
As a devout Catholic he was to have difficulties of conscience with various attempts to legalise artificial contraception following the Supreme Court ruling against the ban on importation of contraceptives in 1973. In the Seanad, when Mary Robinson brought forward her own Bill, O'Higgins and two colleagues put down a motion to refuse it a second reading. Echoing the language of a statement of the Catholic Hierarchy, he said that the Bill would affect seriously and adversely the quality of life in the State. He proposed that the matter be submitted to a referendum.
Later in 1974 the Fine Gael minister for justice, Patrick Cooney, brought forward the government Bill which authorised the sale of contraceptives through pharmacies but only to married couples. During the debate, the government chief whip, John Kelly, rather curiously expounded on what effect the Bill would have on Michael O'Higgins:
"He would sooner, I believe, leave politics altogether than be driven like a sheep into a dipping pond by me or the whip of the Seanad to support a view which he sincerely thinks in his heart is pernicious and damnable."
The Bill fell when the taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and several other Fine Gael deputies joined Fianna Fáil in opposing it.
In his retirement years at his wife's farm near Loughrea, Co Galway, O'Higgins had time to indulge in his favourite outdoor sports of fishing and shooting.
He is survived by his wife, Brigid; daughters, Irene, Hilary, Maeve and Deirdre; sons, Michael, Mark, Brian and Cahir. He was pre-deceased by his son, Patrick. His sister-in-law, Margaret Hogan, also died this week and both will be buried today in Kilrickle cemetery.
Michael J. O'Higgins: born November 12th, 1917; died March 9th, 2005