Fianna F

The party machinery of the Irish Republic's ruling Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny) had rarely run more smoothly. In northeast Dublin, its workers delivered scores of voters to polling places in a shuttle of buses. In the Rialto district, they assembled strange processions of the elderly and infirm who looked as if they could scarcely make it to the nearest park bench, much less to the ballot box. There was even a Spanish nun, a fervent supporter of Prime Minister Jack Lynch, who appeared at one Dublin polling place to vote for the local Fianna Fail candidate. But she was challenged and told she could not vote. "All right," she declared. "If I can't vote for him, I'll pray for him."

Alas, it was all in vain. The night after the election, it was clear that the Fianna Fail, which has ruled Ireland for 35 of the past 41 years, had been narrowly defeated by a new coalition of the conservative Fine Gael (United Ireland) and the socialist Labor Party. "There is no use playing politics," an exhausted Jack Lynch told the country on television at 2 a.m. "I don't think we are going to form a government."

What went wrong? Lynch, Prime Minister for the past six years, had been certain of victory last month when he suddenly called for a "clear and decisive mandate" to strengthen his hand in dealing with the spreading violence in Northern Ireland (TIME, March 5). The violence itself was hardly an issue at all. To some extent, the voters were obviously influenced by the opposition's critical stand on a wide range of domestic problems: taxes, housing, pensions, living costs.

But in the end the coalition's victory --by a thin but workable margin of about four seats in the 144-member Lower House or Dail--was probably the result less of specific issues than of a widespread feeling that after 16 straight years the Fianna Fail had been in office long enough.

The new Prime Minister will be Liam Cosgrave, 52, leader of the Fine Gael and a Minister in two previous governments. The mild-mannered son of the first head of government of the Irish Free State, Cosgrave, in the words of one independent politician, "has one of the cleanest pairs of hands in Irish politics."

A country gentleman who raises horses for fox hunting on his 30-acre farm outside Dublin, Cosgrave has little of the easy pub manner that Irish voters customarily favor. "Bloody good!" shouted one of his supporters as the returns came in last week. "Isn't that bloody good?" "Yes," replied Cosgrave crisply in his best Clifton Webb manner, a pink flush of pleasure on his face. "This is a good result."

In his dealings with Britain and Northern Ireland, Cosgrave is expected to make no important changes in existing policy. He believes that the British government "should recognize that Northern Ireland is a part of Ireland and not part of Britain," but he also believes in moderation.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, a leader of the Labor Party, takes a softer line. Dublin, he says, should patiently assure Ulster's Protestants that "we're not going to try to take you over against your will. Let's talk about unification only when you're ready."

The partners are in full accord on how to deal with the I.R.A., and they have no quarrel with Jack Lynch's decision last fall to jail a handful of I.R.A. extremists. "I've been very strong on the internal security question for years, long before Fianna Fail was," Cosgrave told TIME Correspondent Jordan Bonfante last week. The coalition's record on the I.R.A., adds O'Brien, is "more thoroughly consistent" than the former government's--meaning that the new regime will be just as tough as Lynch was and maybe tougher.

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