Gentleman Jack Gets Back

LET'S BACK JACK, urged the campaign banners of Ireland's Fianna Fail (Band of Destiny) Party. Going to the polls last week in the country's first general election in four years, Irish voters did exactly that. In a stunning upset, John ("Gentleman Jack") Lynch and his Fianna Fail ousted the coalition government of Prime Minister Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael (Family of the Irish) and the Irish Labor Party. Even though Ireland's proportional representation system had been gerrymandered by the government to compensate for Fianna Fail's traditional strength in rural districts, Lynch's party won 51% of the popular vote and a commanding majority of 20 seats in the 148-member Dail (Parliament). The margin of Fianna Fail's victory, the biggest landslide in Ireland's history, astounded even its own strategists. Among the coalition members defeated was Scholar-Diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

The surprising vote was in sharp contrast to the placid and generally lackluster campaign that preceded it. Shortly before election day, according to one survey, 43% of the eligible voters felt that it made little difference which party won. Obviously, though, they cared more than the pollsters and politicians suspected. With Ireland suffering its worst economic slump in 50 years--unemployment has reached 10% and inflation 16%--voters were apparently impressed by Lynch's Action Plan for National Reconstruction, which promised, among other things, to create 20,000 new jobs.

The hustings appearances of the two chief candidates also figured in the outcome. Jack Lynch, 59, a much admired former Gaelic games champion from Cork, and Prime Minister from 1966 to 1973, ignored an injured ankle and a nagging cold to make a two-week, 4,000-mile swing through the country, which attracted large crowds. By contrast, Cosgrave, son of a former Irish Free State Prime Minister, carried on what amounted to a noncampaign. Shy and intensely private, Cosgrave avoided pressing voter flesh as much as he could. The Prime Minister approached politicking, teased London's Sunday Times, rather in the way that Irishmen traditionally regard drinking and sex--the thing has to be done but a man should not look as if he took pleasure in it.

Bloomsday Election. Some sentimental Irishmen were pleased that, whether deliberately or not, Cosgrave chose the anniversary of Bloomsday for the election: June 16, 1904, was the date on which the events in James Joyce's Ulysses took place. The fact that Fianna Fail--the party of Eamon de Valera and other Independence heroes--returned to power delighted Irish republicans. There were worries in Belfast and London that Lynch's party was a bit soft on the Irish Republican Army, and that a Fianna Fail government would repolarize the situation in Ulster by stirring up suspicions among its Protestant majority. Fianna Fail favors eventual withdrawal of British forces from Northern Ireland and peaceful reunification of North and South, while the Fine Gael downplays unification and seeks to allay Protestant fears.

But Lynch has denounced the terrorism of the Proves. In accepting victory last week, he assured the nation --and Ulstermen as well--that "there will be no problem whatever in relating to Northern Ireland." He promised "understanding" with the North.

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