A Garda investigation was launched after it emerged that a number of fake invitations were sent to the people of Clare for the inauguration of President Patrick Hillery in 1976.
The forgers were somewhat inept. They misspelt the president-elect's surname as "Hilary" and omitted the "i" in Áras an Uachtaráin. A government official said the cards bore no resemblance to the genuine invitations, which had an official seal from the Department of the Taoiseach.
Up to 30 people in Dr Hillery's birthplace of Miltown Malbay received the fake invitations. However, the Garda investigation does not seem to have identified the culprits, according to the State papers just released. Almost two years after the inauguration, a note on a government file said that there had been no progress and the Department of Justice did not expect any developments at that stage.
Another file shows that the Government received many complaints from people who had not been invited to President Hillery's inauguration or to other State functions.
Revenue commissioner Michael O'Connor complained to the taoiseach's department in 1976 that all the commissioners had not been invited to President Hillery's inauguration ceremonies.
Land commissioner Tom O'Sullivan told the Department of the Taoiseach in 1974 that he and his colleagues were "very upset" that they had not been invited to the inauguration of President Cearbhaill Ó Dálaigh.
"We feel offended, more especially as to our certain knowledge persons of much lower rank in the public service received invitations," he wrote. "For myself and my wife our absence from the 'do' was highly embarrassing," and numerous friends had said "we were looking out for you at the castle".
When the Department of the Taoiseach official responded that the invitation list generally did not extend to civil servants below the secretary of department level, an offended O'Sullivan responded that land commissioners considered their status to be between that of Circuit and High Court judge.
In 1975, Dublin city councillors "expressed dissatisfaction" that they had not been adequately represented at the death of President Erskine Childers and the inauguration of President Ó Dálaigh.
"They felt that, as the premier local authority in Ireland, all of them should have been invited . . .", the secretary to the city manager wrote to the Department of the Taoiseach.
A civil servant had underlined this last sentence and placed a question mark beside the assertion that the city council was "the premier local authority in Ireland".
