His father served the State as taoiseach, his grandfather was one of those who helped to found it, having escaped a death sentence in the aftermath of the Easter Rising.
Yesterday, shoulders slumped, Liam Cosgrave, a former TD, senator and cathaoirleach of the Seanad, walked out of court number eight in the Four Courts, a broken man.
Having pleaded guilty to accepting £2,500 (€3,175) from disgraced lobbyist Frank Dunlop, the former Dún Laoghaire TD will be sentenced to community service.
Judge Katherine Delahunt appeared to have little sympathy for the defence offered by Cosgrave's counsel, Luan Ó Braonáin.
The lawyer suggested that Cosgrave was by nature careless with paperwork and had not recognised the seriousness of the electoral legislation that requires all politicians to declare the source of all donations worth more than £500 (€635).
His experience as a legislator and as a solicitor should have made him "keenly aware of the ramifications" of any legislation passed by the Oireachtas, not less, said the judge tersely.
Mr Ó Braonáin said his client had once been respected by society but he had been "vilified in the press and treated as an outcast", he had lost friends as quickly as he lost station once details of the payments emerged.
Cosgrave stood before Judge Delahunt, his suit jacket buttoned untidily, with no obvious sign of family or friends in attendance.
Though he could have faced fines of €25,000 or a jail sentence of up to three years, she believed that he had already "suffered a significant penalty".
Cosgrave showed no sign of relief. In fact he showed no sign of any emotion.
A member of one of the State's most famous political dynasties, his political career is long since over. His career as a solicitor, never one of the most successful, is equally moribund. He has not reached the age of 50.
The case had been listed for sentencing before Judge Delahunt as DU/00430/2005, one of dozens needing attention yesterday.
The usual list of excuses was offered for the non-attendance of those facing charges.
Some had missed the train, another was in hospital, another could not attend next week because his girlfriend was giving birth, while another accused could not attend on Fridays for religious reasons.
Cosgrave sat alone in the corner on one of the church-like pews that line the room, legs crossed, often staring quietly into space, with little attention paid to him.
To the irritation of the judge, when Cosgrave's file was first mentioned, prosecuting counsel Dominic McGinn was not present in the court - caught up, according to a colleague, with another case.
Quickly running through the details of the case later with Det Garda Leo Clayton, Mr McGinn recounted that while Cosgrave had not put his hands up when he was first interviewed by detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigations in Harcourt Square, he did so quickly thereafter to one of the charges.
Leaving the courts, he spoke quietly to a few journalists.
"Do you want to say anything on the record, Liam?" he was asked. "No, if you don't mind. I won't, thanks," he replied, politely.
He shuffled away into the interior of the Four Courts complex.
