A round up of other 1979 news in brief
Cabinet approved Hillery’s holiday
President Patrick Hillery was obliged to seek government consent for a sailing holiday outside Irish territorial waters and a cabinet decision had to be taken before he could depart.
This has emerged in documents released under the 30-year rule which reveal that a cabinet meeting on August 2nd, 1979, gave its consent to the president’s leaving “for the purpose of engaging in a yachting cruise outside the territorial waters of the State”.
A handwritten note in the file records that taoiseach Jack Lynch “said that the President had indicated to him that he wished to sail in his yacht outside Irish territorial waters. Attorney General’s office advice was that govt consent should be obtained.”
A typewritten note from the attorney general’s office points out that, under article 12.9 of the Constitution, “the President shall not leave the State during his term of office save with the consent of the Government”.
Elaborating on the matter, the note continues: “It is the leaving of the State that must have the consent of the Government under the Constitution – not the entering of the territory of another State.”
Áras invite for ‘cranky’ O’Flaherty
President Patrick Hillery was advised to decline an invitation to present a literary award to Liam O’Flaherty, as the writer from the Aran Islands was “frequently very cranky” and also because the award was being sponsored by a bank.
However, the president was urged to invite the author of the novels The Informer (famously made into a film by John Ford), Famine and Insurrection on a “short visit” to his official residence.
He was also advised that “it would not lead to a stampede of writers or would-be writers to an tÁras”.
The invitation was sent on February 9th, 1979, by the poet Eavan Boland in her capacity as honorary secretary of the Irish Academy of Letters. She notified the president that, on the academy’s recommendation, O’Flaherty would shortly be receiving that year’s £1,000 Allied Irish Banks Award for Literature.
“Liam O’Flaherty is an old man now and this award from you would add a dimension to that acceptance which I feel he desires. You can understand that we would desire it for him,” Boland wrote.
In a note in Irish with the invitation, secretary to the president Micheál Ó hOdhráin writes (Irish Times translation): “The bank is providing the money and I do not think the president should have anything whatsoever to do with the event. I recommend accordingly. In addition, I know Liam O’Flaherty fairly well. He is frequently very cranky [“bíonn sé an-chantalach go minic”] and I would be concerned that he would behave in such a manner at the presentation of the award, even though he was getting £1,000.”
In a note on the file, now released under the 30-year rule, Mr Hillery writes (in English): “Micheál: If as she says he desires [“desires” underlined] recognition by my participation, should I invite him here?”
Responding in English, Ó hOdhráin writes: “O’Flaherty has reached a venerable age. He has achieved distinction in Irish and in English as an author. I think an invitation to him to pay a short visit to Áras would be a great boost to him. It would not lead to a stampede of writers or would-be writers to an tÁras.
However, arrangements for the visit were postponed because O’Flaherty had dislocated his hip in a road accident.
The AIB award, which was doubled in that year to £2,000, was presented along with “a silver cigarette case” by the bank’s deputy chairman, Prof Patrick Lynch.
Then aged 82 years, O’Flaherty attended the ceremony in a wheelchair before returning to hospital for further treatment for his injury. He died in 1984.
