Jack Lynch

That was subsequently denied.

Two of the most powerful members of the government at the time, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, were not just fired from government, were subsequently put on trial for their role in it, precipitated, I suppose, ultimately the fall of, not at the time, but ultimately, I suppose, contributed to the fall of Jack Lynch as Taoiseach.

He claimed not to know about it, the cabinet claimed not to have sanctioned it.

Ultimately, Haughey Blaney and Captain Kelly and another man whose surname was also Kelly from West Belfast were put on trial for this was the illegal importation of arms.

The result of all of this is a revolution within the legal system and the Supreme Court is at the heart of that.

What happens in 1972 is that Carol O'Doherty leaves the Supreme Court to join the European Court and there's a second vacancy on the Supreme Court at this time.

The Taoiseach at the time was Jack Lynch and we know that Jack Lynch had certain reservations about the direction of travel on the Supreme Court for a number of years.

So he appoints Billy Fitzgerald as Chief Justice.

Mm

... uh, when Jack Lynch was, uh, Taoiseach, uh, because he had suggested that he was open to the idea of facilitating an all-party committee to see how best, uh, the Civil War be c- w- could be commemorated, but there was no appetite for it.

No.

Uh, and then, you know, you have the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland the following year, which further complicates any idea of commemoration.

And in between, the year that they didn't win a hurling title, they won a football title.

So this famously is when Jack Lynch picked up six All-Ireland medals.

What a man.

This final in 1947, which was played on the 7th of September, just

Uh, uh, the, uh, the Department of...

Uh, the, the ta- At the time, Jack Lynch was Minister for Finance, and he was on his way home on that Saturday evening from a holiday in Cyprus, and he found out about the story on Sunday morning in the front pages of the papers.

Himself and the famous T.J. Whitaker were, uh, uh, hysterical about how is this going to be dealt with.

So after prolonged negotiations and, as you say, in smoke-filled rooms and so on, the Department, uh, the, of Finance and the government in general said they would support, um, the changes that were needed to bring in the, um, the, the, the free education.

T-shirts.

The two, oh, Jack Lynch, Micheál Martin.

Obviously, Micheál Martin and part of Jack Lynch.

Micheál

Martin and

the overall Cork.

Micheál and who was there before him? Oh, Jack Lynch.

Jack Lynch and...

Not only was his kind of political career on the line, his life was almost on the line in the sense that he could have found himself in prison for a very long time.

And why he didn't use that defence and say it was us, the Cabinet, that had all agreed it and called in Jack Lynch as Taoiseach to have to say on the record, no, we didn't have this agreement.

We didn't agree a policy to import arms covertly.

I'd spoken to other members of that Cabinet who were in the room.

That 1973 to 77 government of the Fine Gael and Labour National Coalition, it faced oil crises and there was huge problems within government.

Unemployment was rising and there was very high inflation.

And so what we see in 1977 is that Fianna Fáil gets a big majority for Jack Lynch.

Jack Lynch is kind of coming to the end of his career, seems to lack much energy.

He was seen by a junior minister.

Jack Lynch instructed diplomats to go into the State Department.

They went in and they were told, sorry, we can't interfere in this affair because this is a domestic matter for Britain.

We're sorry, we're sympathetic, but we have nothing we can do.