In with the old – John Mulqueen on luck and ‘the vision thing’

Simon Harris likes to roll his shirt sleeves up. Or at least to be seen with his tie off. Coming across as the gung-ho manager of a jaded team that will “hit the ground running” if it simply retrieves its self-belief, he promises “a new energy” for the party. His Fine Gael aims to recover lost support by remembering its old values – prioritising law and order, and supporting farmers and business. “In with the old” seems to be the solution for “Simon the Energetic”. But since he faces the possibility of being the most unsuccessful Fine Gael leader with the electorate, he might be tempted to look at the fortunes of the party’s most successful vote winner.

Garret FitzGerald took over as leader in 1977 when Fianna Fáil formed a single-party government with a historic majority. A confident communicator, unlike his predecessor Liam Cosgrave, the ambitious FitzGerald modernised the party structure, recruited new talent, and launched Young Fine Gael.

Seen as self-righteous, he became known as “Garret the Good” when he alleged that the Fianna Fáil leader, Charlie Haughey, had a “flawed pedigree”. He later said his controversial remark referred to rumours that Haughey was corrupt. Fine Gael won 65 seats in the 1981 election and formed a minority government with Labour, then the “half” party in the “two-and-a-half” party system.

FitzGerald had “the vision thing”. He believed he was a crusader to transform what he saw as a “sectarian” Irish state into something that alienated Northern Protestants would be more comfortable with. In September 1981 he declared that he wanted a debate which would eventually lead to the removal of the state’s effectively Catholic legislation that had “partitioned” the country for all of its people. “I became increasingly concerned to get into politics about that.”

General selection – Frank McNally on national stereotypes, Greek (and table quiz) heroes, and a stamp of greatness

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Blood brothers – Frank McNally on the deaths of two young men, one Irish, in the Korean War

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Hard Border – Frank McNally on a visit to the Korean Demilitarised Zone

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Transmigration of Seoul – Frank McNally on a long-awaited trip to South Korea

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FitzGerald had to cope with tough left-wing Independents. His budget was defeated by one vote in January 1982 when he refused to make concessions on introducing VAT for children’s shoes and clothes. In the Dáil he pleaded unsuccessfully with Limerick TD Jim Kemmy, whose submissions on capital taxation and social welfare had been ignored. Haughey became taoiseach again, having offered more than FitzGerald in a constituency deal with the Dublin Central Independent Tony Gregory. When this minority government fell, Fine Gael won its highest share of the vote, 39.2 per cent, and 70 seats, in the November 1982 election. FitzGerald headed up a new coalition government with the Labour Party.

Notwithstanding his determination to stop Haughey – “Charlie the Bold” – from becoming taoiseach, and his ambition to pursue his “constitutional crusade”, FitzGerald had an absent-minded professor image. Wearing odd socks was nothing, he once turned up wearing odd shoes. Lacking the common touch, he once dismayed the famously thin-skinned Corkonians by asking about the red and white bunting at an event he attended in Cork. The answer? Cork’s GAA colours. Courting the youth vote, “Garret the Good” had a lucky media break when he struck up a friendship with the then fashionable Bono. U2 invited him into the Windmill Lane recording studios, where he put on headphones and gave a reasonable impersonation of someone enjoying what they were hearing, but wearing a suit and tie.

Haughey gave no quarter in opposition as FitzGerald struggled to deal with the 1980s recession. Fianna Fáil’s populism under “Charlie the Bold” saw the party maintain a nominally neutral position during the referendum campaign to remove the constitutional prohibition on divorce. The anti-divorce campaigners won the day. FitzGerald’s government collapsed in January 1987 when Labour refused to agree on budget cutbacks. During the election Fianna Fáil employed the slogan, “Health cuts hurt the old, the sick, and the handicapped” – “Charlie the Bold”, taoiseach once more, now implemented more stringent cuts than FitzGerald had dared to introduce. He resigned as Fine Gael leader in March.

Tougher than he looked, his best achievement as taoiseach was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Alarmed at the electoral success of Sinn Féin in the North, FitzGerald feared that the political wing of the IRA might overtake John Hume’s SDLP, and, furthermore, make significant electoral gains in the South. According to this thinking, Sinn Féin’s “ballot box and Armalite” strategy might see it endanger the stability of all of Ireland – the “Irish Cuba” nightmare. This led FitzGerald to take the initiative with the British and begin a talks process that resulted in the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Ironically, for him, this deal, which gave Dublin a say in the governance of Northern Ireland, provoked unionist outrage. However, the talks process he initiated led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998, which brought armed conflict in the North to an end.

“Simon the Energetic” will need an awful lot of energy if he is to tackle the challenges confronting his government in the short time it has left. Management willpower will hardly be enough to galvanise the demoralised Fine Gael team. Harris will need luck. And, maybe, “the vision thing”.