| Election Name: | 1974 Irish presidential election |
| Country: | Ireland |
| Type: | presidential |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1973 Irish presidential election |
| Previous Year: | 1973 |
| Next Election: | 1976 Irish presidential election |
| Next Year: | 1976 |
| Election Date: | 18 December 1974 (Unopposed) |
| Image1: | Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, 1975 (cropped).jpg |
| Party1: | Fianna Fáil |
| President | |
| Before Election: | Erskine H. Childers |
| Before Party: | Fianna Fáil |
| After Election: | Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh |
| After Party: | Independent politician (Ireland) |
The 1974 Irish presidential election resulted from the sudden death in office of President Erskine H. Childers. Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was elected unopposed as the fifth president of Ireland.
Childers died on 17 November 1974. On 21 November, the Minister for Local Government issued a ministerial order setting 3 December as the date for close of nominations and 18 December as the date of the election.[1]
Under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland, a candidate for president could be nominated by:
Initially all parties privately agreed to nominate the late president's widow, Rita Childers.[2] Before she was informed of the plan, however, a mix-up led to the collapse of the arrangement.[3] A partially deaf Fine Gael Teachta Dála, identified in some reports as Tom O'Donnell,[4] confirmed the secret arrangement upon mishearing a journalist's question asking about the decision of a local council's nomination of Childers as president, having assumed that the cross-party decision was made public.[3] Fianna Fáil leader Jack Lynch, thinking the party was set up, subsequently withdrew from the agreement and nominated Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh instead.[3] The parties agreed to the new arrangement due to a number of external factors, including a sluggish economy and The Troubles.[3]
Ó Dálaigh had served as Attorney General from 1951 to 1953, as a judge of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1973, as Chief Justice from 1961 to 1973, and had been serving as a judge of the European Court of Justice from 1973 at the time of his nomination. All parties agreed to Ó Dálaigh's nomination. As no other candidate was nominated, it was not necessary to proceed to a ballot for his election.
Ó Dálaigh was inaugurated as president on Thursday, 19 December 1974.