Reluctant public figure who valued privacy

Mairín Lynch: Mairín Lynch, the widow of the former taoiseach Jack Lynch, was a vibrant Dubliner who married a quintessential…

Mairín Lynch: Mairín Lynch, the widow of the former taoiseach Jack Lynch, was a vibrant Dubliner who married a quintessential Cork man and who longed to be away from the glare of the public life in which she spent most of her marriage. She died on Wednesday aged 87.

But although she would have preferred a private life for both of them, she took a lively interest in the political issues with which her husband was concerned. A core belief, which she repeated in interview after interview, was that the important thing was to do whatever job was assigned to you in life regardless of whether it was what you wanted.

She learned early the importance of getting on with life. She was only 2½ years old when her father died. Her mother, Margaret O'Connor, had little option but to get a job to support herself and her child.

The job was with the Dublin Industrial Development Association, which had the aim of promoting the manufacture in Ireland of quality goods and their purchase by the consumer. So successful was Margaret O'Connor at the job that she was later commemorated by an annual award at the St Patrick's Day parade.

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In her mother's office the young Mairín met such luminaries as Maude Gonne MacBride. She also, as a child, used to go to the annual dinners of the association because there was no one to look after her in the flat in which she and her mother lived.

Although she was an only child she was not a lonely child. "An only child is never lonely," she said later. "You learn to think."

She went to the Dominicans at Muckross Park for 13 years, and then on to their school in Eccles Street for a year. During her school days she loved sport and had a leaning for maths. From school she went to the civil service as a clerical officer.

That would not have been her first choice. She loved clothes, and would have liked to be a dress designer. But she couldn't draw and, more importantly, the money was not there to pay for a long period of training in London or Paris. She made many of her own clothes until her husband became minister for industry and commerce and life became too busy.

She met Jack Lynch in Glengariff when he was between an all-Ireland semi-final and a final. They married in 1946.

The first two years of their marriage, when he practised as a barrister, were the happiest of their lives, she said.

At the end of those two years he was elected to the Dáil for the first time.

She played down, determinedly, the status of her own role as wife of a TD, minister and, ultimately taoiseach. She was, she said, doing a job, "just as the butcher, the baker or the candlestick-maker".

Indeed, she saw herself in that role as one who contributed a great deal less to the general well-being than, say, people running meals-on-wheels, helping with children or visiting hospitals.

"It's the people who can dictate their own pace and do their own thing without external pressures who really enjoy a satisfying life," she said. "They also do much more good than I could in a thousand years as I have little time for anything worthwhile."

She was genuinely disappointed that lack of public finances prevented her husband from bringing about changes she would like to have seen in social services, health services and other areas.

An ordinary life with her husband is what she would have wanted most of all. "My dearest wish for the future is the happiness and pleasure of anonymity," she once said. "I don't think people understand how important it is to be completely free."

Nevertheless, she carried on her public role diligently. "What is really important is that the job one is assigned to in life is done to the best of one's ability," she declared many times and in many ways.

She loved to travel. When she was 21 her mother offered her a gift of jewellery: she asked instead for a week in Europe and spent it between Paris and Lucerne. Ireland's accession to the EEC was a tremendous event for her because she felt so close to Europe.

Given her feelings about public life, it is no surprise that she stayed out of the limelight and rarely sought publicity. Nevertheless she found herself in the thick of controversy when, in 1971, she condemned the tarring and feathering of two young girls in Derry for going out with soldiers. A vicious verbal attack on her by the Derry Women's Action Committee left her entirely undaunted. When replying to her critics she condemned the murder of a young British soldier who was seeing a young Catholic woman.

She publicly took issue with the Peace People when they criticised an ardfheis speech by her husband in 1978. She defended him in a letter to The Irish Times and declared in an interview that she believed efforts for peace would not have any significant effect until the right of people to hold legitimate aspirations - political, religious or ethnic - was faced up to, acknowledged and accepted.

She would have liked to have a family, and they considered adopting but felt the demands of the political life meant they could not give an adopted child the care and attention needed.

With her husband she shared an interest in sport. She played hockey, camogie and tennis, and in the last of these played junior interprovincial for Leinster. They both loved swimming and exploring the countryside and they enjoyed a round of golf.

She loved music, particularly classical, and once said that her records were the most important thing in the house. She was also interested in ballet, theatre and opera. When she was working in the civil service she liked to go to the shows in the Gaiety theatre after work.

She loved reading newspapers, cutting out interesting pieces for later.

She did not care for ostentatious living. "No one should be made to feel inferior," she said once. "There must be no doffing of caps."

As a couple, herself and Jack Lynch were very close. "Jack is not just my husband, he is also my pal and my companion," she once said.

The longed-for opportunity to spend more time together came at the end of 1979 when he stepped down as taoiseach.

They were to have two decades together outside the spotlight of politics until his death in October 1999. Their last six years together were blighted by his long illness following a stroke, but Mairín Lynch got on with doing what she had to do, as she always did, and made the best of it for both of them.

Mairín Lynch: born 1917; died June 9th, 2004