Born: 2 May, 1923, in County Clare.
Died: 12 April, 2008, aged 84. PATRICK Hillery was a physician-turned-politician who served 14 years as Ireland's president after a long ministerial career that won him admiration for
his handling of the volatile issue of British rule in Northern Ireland.
Hillery also had a role in negotiating Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973. His two terms as president, from 1976 to 1990, ended before the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which set terms for an end to violence in Northern Ireland. But he acted at crucial moments as an emollient influence on the republic's policies toward the north, and set a tone that helped pave the way for eventual peace.
His approach, especially as Ireland's foreign minister, combined moments of confrontation with Britain over its policies toward the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland with a similarly steadfast attitude toward hard-line nationalists within his own Fianna Fail party, which has dominated Irish politics for long periods since the 1922 agreement that created separate governments in Dublin and Belfast.
He became foreign minister in 1969, just as a new era of sectarian violence began in Northern Ireland.
He stirred antagonism in London with his protests against the failure of the Protestant-dominated police in Northern Ireland to protect Catholic areas and rights protesters. Snubbed in London, he took his case to the United Nations, proposing unsuccessfully that the task of keeping peace be handed to a joint British and Irish military force or to United Nations peacekeepers.
After the first British Army house searches in the north provoked further Catholic protests, Hillery brushed aside diplomatic protocol to make an unannounced visit to the Catholic stronghold in the Falls Road area of Belfast, further infuriating the British.
After 13 civilians were killed by British troops in the Bloody Sunday shooting in Londonderry in 1972, Hillery took his case to Washington.
"I believe the British government have gone mad," he told an American television interviewer at the time. He predicted that Britain's "lunatic course" in sending troops to the north could lead to war between Britain and Ireland.
But those and other incidents masked a determination to steer a course toward peace. Years after he made his Falls Road visit, he said he had made the trip to pre-empt hardliners in the Dublin cabinet who were planning to go to Belfast and encourage the armed resistance against British rule that was led by the Irish Republican Army. He also opposed demands among Fianna Fail hardliners for an early withdrawal of British troops.
"Northern Ireland is an armed state," he said. "There are over 100,000 guns in private hands, and this problem must be solved before withdrawal."
Patrick John Hillery was born in 1923, on the west coast of County Clare; his father was a doctor. After earning a medical degree at University College Dublin, he lived briefly in Canada before winning an election in 1951 to the Dail, the Irish Parliament, as a running mate of Eamon de Valera, who led the Irish struggle for independence. He was education minister from 1959 to 1966, promoting comprehensive schools outside the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, which have been credited with helping Ireland produce the educated workforce that contributed to the country's economic boom of the past 20 years.
After Ireland joined Europe, Hillery was appointed Ireland's representative on the European Commission; as the official in charge of social policy, he promoted the rights of migrant workers and defended equal pay for women.
Reluctantly, he ran unopposed for the Irish presidency after the incumbent, Cearbhall O Dalaigh, resigned over a bitter dispute with the defence minister. Hillery adopted a nonpartisan stance, retreating from public view and spending much of his time playing golf.
It was no secret that he found the job of figurehead frustrating. "Children used to ask me if it was nice to be president, and you would have to say 'yes'," he said after leaving office. "You know, you couldn't disappoint them."
He is survived by his wife, Mary Beatrice, known as Maeve, and a son. A daughter, Vivienne, predeceased him.
The full article contains 699 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
