In 1977, Jack Lynch led Fianna Fail back into Government with a 20-seat majority - the biggest in the history of the State. He admitted on the night of victory the majority was too large and could create future problems. His fear was justified; in the ensuing years, the backbenchers, many of whom knew they were unlikely to hold on to their seats in another election, became restless. Any evidence of vulnerability by the leadership was in danger of being exploited.
Two years later, in 1979, an event which shocked the nation occurred and shattered any hope Mr Lynch had of a reasonably secure period of government. The Provisional IRA murdered Lord Mountbatten in a bomb attack on his boat just outside the harbour at Mullaghmore in Co Sligo.
Mr Lynch was on holidays in Spain at the time with his wife, Maureen. They returned home immediately and he attended the ceremony at Baldonnel Airport on the removal of Lord Mountbatten's body by air to London. Two days later he attended the funeral service in Westminster Abbey on behalf of the Government.
He was at his most vulnerable; he was deeply embarrassed by the failure of the Irish security forces to protect a man who was close to the British royal family and who was still regarded in heroic terms by the British public.
It was not surprising that he was subjected to extreme pressure by the British Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. She wanted concessions in the security area. He conceded something which was refused previously by Liam Cosgrave's Government - permission for British helicopters to cross the Border for a limited distance in cases of "hot pursuit".
The new security arrangement apparently permitted the establishment of an air corridor of 10 kilometres - five on either side of the Border - to be used by helicopters or light aircraft from North or South in cases of "hot pursuit" of suspected terrorists. Permission for the overflights could come only from an officer of the rank of brigadier general or higher.
Rumours began circulating in political circles within days that there had been a stepping up in the security arrangements between North and South. Nobody would confirm, however, that there had been any change or what the nature of the change might be.
Having considered all the possible security changes that might have occurred, it seemed to me that the most likely development was not on the ground but in the air. Already, there had been a considerable improvement in co-operation on the ground between the security forces; the most up-to-date techniques had been put in place for immediate communication between the Garda and the RUC. Hundreds of thousands of pounds had been spent on radiotelephonic links to ensure quick closing off of the Border in cases of emergency.
A change in security in the air could only mean the establishment of an air corridor to ensure continuous surveillance of suspected terrorists fleeing across the Border after an attack on targets in Northern Ireland. Obviously, similar surveillance would apply in the event of an attack by the UVF on a target in the Republic.
I tried out my theory of an air corridor by way of a casual question to a senior civil servant a few days later. He was stunned by the question. Before he could collect himself, he said "My God, where did you hear that?" and instantly switched the subject, but he had confirmed for me the accuracy of my assumption. Armed with this information, I now went looking for some guidance on the extent of the corridor. I learned after a series of trial and error questions that the distance was 10. Having been educated in a system that recorded distances in miles rather than kilometres, I assumed the distance was 10 miles, instead of 10 kilometres.
My story in the Irish Press the following day was followed by instant denials from all Government sources. Members of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party were suspicious, however, and Deputy Bill Loughnane of Clare asked the Taoiseach if any change had occurred. Mr Lynch assured him there had been no change in the sovereignty exercised the State over our air space. This was true, insofar as we still retained the sovereign right to permit or deny access to our air space but it did not clear up the mystery as to where the Irish Press story came from, whether it had any basis in fact.
The story was given additional emphasis by the publication in the Daily Telegraph a day or two later of similar material, with the extent of the corridor being stated as 10 km, which indicated to me the source of the Telegraph story was the British government or the Northern Ireland Office since there was a complete blanket on information from the Irish side. No Irish newspaper, apart from the Irish Press, carried the story, but they all carried a denial by Government sources that there was any truth in the matter.
Within the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party, however, there remained the suspicion that it might be true, despite Mr Lynch's claim that the sovereignty of our air space remained unaffected. For myself, I considered that the change was a minor development in terms of cross-Border co-operation, particularly in the light of the heinous killing of Lord Mountbatten and two other members of his boating party in Mullaghmore, but an indication of public feeling was brought home to me shortly afterwards when my 90-year-old mother sought my reassurance that the story could not possibly be true.
The idea of British helicopters being allowed to enter Irish air space was for her completely unacceptable. The fact that we were quite happy to use British helicopters on mercy missions to assist in air-sea rescues or to take injured people to hospital was not seen as a good counter-argument.
Shortly after this came two by-elections in Mr Lynch's own territory of Co Cork. The forecasts were that Fianna Fail would win both elections, but as I watched Mr Lynch's final rally in Cork city on the eve of the elections, it seemed to me his extraordinary personal appeal to voters, which had seen him win the 1977 general election with the biggest majority in the party's history, had lost much of its magnetism. Gone was the old enthusiasm of the crowds; in its place was a dull apathy which, I suggested to some of my colleagues, did not bode well for Fianna Fail's prospects in the by-elections.
The results confirmed the predictions. By that time, we were thousands of miles away in Washington on a visit by the Taoiseach to meet Irish-American industrialists in a number of US cities. He took the results of the Cork by-elections very badly. It was obvious at an impromptu press conference for Irish political journalists accompanying him on his US trip that he was profoundly shaken by the results, particularly as they were from his own county where he would have expected the old loyalties to be maintained. The harsh realities of political life were beginning to close.
But this was minor matter compared to an event that was to take place the following day at the National Press Club in Washington, where Mr Lynch had been invited to deliver a speech and to take questions from US journalists afterwards. He concluded his speech and answered a number of routine questions. The function was almost over and most of the journalists had put away their notebooks when the Washington Correspondent of The Irish Times, Sean Cronin, asked what new arrangements had been made about over-flying of our national territory.
Mr Lynch, still suffering, possibly, from jet-lag and relaxed after a couple of glasses of wine with his lunch, was quite unprepared for the question. He said that the regulations under the Air Navigation Act remained unchanged. Unfortunately for himself, he did not stop there; he added the significant phrase - "except in one slight respect". There was an audible gasp of "Oh, my God" from one of the Irish civil servants on the top table. I already had my notebook out of my pocket and was writing furiously away as Mr Lynch went on to explain about the slight change in the regulations.
I sent over a story from Washington to the Irish Press that night to the effect that the Taoiseach had confirmed my story of a couple of months previously about the setting-up of an air corridor on the Border. Mr Lynch did not, of course, describe it as such, but his admission of a change in the regulations governing overflights led to an explosion in the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party.
Dr Loughnane, who had asked questions about the matter when the Irish Press story was first published, now called Mr Lynch "a liar".
Mr Lynch was furious. The group of Irish journalists travelling with him on his US trip were practically frozen out as he wrestled with the internal party problems threatening to undermine his leadership. Even Maureen Lynch found it difficult to give her usual welcoming "good morning" as we boarded the special vice-presidential airforce plane which had been placed at Mr Lynch's disposal.
We left Washington and travelled via Chicago and New Orleans to Houston in Texas, pursued by fax messages from home about the repercussions in the Fianna Fail Party.
By the time we arrived in Houston, Mr Lynch had made up his mind to fire Dr Loughnane from the Parliamentary Party. It may have been the only option available to him to restore his authority, but it was a highly risky undertaking to engage in from a distance of 5,000 miles. He decided to ask George Colley, who was acting leader in his absence, to put down a motion at the next Parliamentary Party meeting for the removal of the Whip from Dr Loughnane.
We were attending a rodeo on a ranch in Houston when he made the fateful call to Mr Colley. There were only two telephones available on the ranch, one an outdoor kiosk, which was being used by Dick Walsh of The Irish Times and a second inside in the ranch-house which was being used by me to send copy to the Irish Press. I was talking away on the phone in a small room when a burly FBI man knocked peremptorily on the door. "Sir" he said "we want that phone for your Prime Minister".
"Mr Lynch can have the phone whenever he arrives here," I said, "but in the meantime I intend to complete my conversation with my office in Dublin". He left in a huff, I completed my call and was leaving the building when I met Mr Lynch coming in. He was clearly in a bad mood. I greeted him but he barely nodded in reply before going inside to make what I believed was a call to Dublin to set in motion the wheels for Dr Loughnane's dismissal.
Two days later we learned that his efforts had failed. The Parliamentary Party refused to support Mr Colley's motion, especially after Deputy Vivion de Valera had opposed it on the grounds that Dr Loughnane's original question to Mr Lynch about cross-Border overflights had not been properly answered and after Dr Loughnane had softened to some extent his original position.
Nevertheless, it represented a public challenge to his authority. Even his decision to remove two Ministers from his government at the time of the arms crisis in 1970 had not been questioned, but, now a backbench deputy was, apparently, to go undisciplined after calling the Taoiseach "a liar". Dr Loughnane went even further in the following days by calling for Mr Lynch's resignation.
Mr Lynch could easily have fought off any challenge to his leadership, but it seems some months earlier he had already discussed with his wife, Maureen, the possibility of taking early retirement at the beginning of 1980. He now moved forward that date by a few months. His frustration at the inability or unwillingness of the Parliamentary Party to deal with Dr Loughnane boiled over, however, shortly before the end of the US trip when he gave a press conference to the Irish journalists who had accompanied him on the trip at his New York hotel on the eve of his departure for home He was answering a general question about the internal row in Fianna Fail when he stopped in mid-sentence and pointed a finger at me. "You, Michael, started all this with your 10-mile air corridor". I started to protest but he interrupted me. "If I say 10 kilometres, you'll say 10 miles, and if I say 10 miles, you'll say 10 kilometres," he said. At this point, Chris Glennon of the Irish Independent tried to pour oil on the troubled waters, only to draw Mr Lynch's attention away from me on to himself. At that stage, the Government Press Secretary, Frank Dunlop, intervened to bring the press conference to a close.
Mr Lynch came back to Dublin to face mounting rebellion in the Parliamentary Party. He could have faced it down and would almost certainly have defeated any challenge to his leadership, but, having decided to go, he stuck by his decision, being convinced by his closest advisers that Mr Colley, whom he trusted, would succeed him in any electoral contest.
The advice was bad, however, as any of the political correspondents could have told him at any time in the preceding months. For more than a year we had been conducting regular polls among ourselves as to the likely outcome of a leadership contest between Mr Colley and Charles Haughey. In every one of them, Mr Haughey came out on top.
The only person who ever asked me for an opinion on the outcome was Mr Haughey himself. I told him that our estimates gave him 45-46 votes. He was somewhat disappointed, as he told me his own estimate put him at more than 50 votes, but then, he said, 45 votes would be a victory in any case. Up to the end, Mr Colley's supporters continued to express absolute confidence in the outcome. I tried to explain to one of his aides that they were being misled and that some deputies were obviously promising their votes to both men, but they were not prepared to listen and, in any case, it was too late. Mr Haughey won by 44 to 38.