1976 Irish presidential election explained

Election Name:	1976 Irish presidential election
Country:	Ireland
Type:	presidential
Ongoing:	no
Previous Election:	1974 Irish presidential election
Previous Year:	1974
Next Election:	1983 Irish presidential election
Next Year:	1983
Election Date:	3 December 1976 (Unopposed)
Image1:	Patrick Hillery, 1973 (cropped).tif
Nominee1:	Patrick Hillery
Party1:	Fianna Fáil
President
Before Election:	Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh^[1]
Before Party:	Independent politician (Ireland)
After Election:	Patrick Hillery
After Party:	Fianna Fáil

The 1976 Irish presidential election was precipitated by the resignation of President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh in October 1976. Patrick Hillery was elected unopposed as the sixth president of Ireland.

Background to the election

Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh resigned as president soon after an attack on him by Paddy Donegan, the Minister for Defence, in which the minister called the President a "thundering disgrace" for having referred the Emergency Powers Bill 1976 to the Supreme Court.^[2] Ó Dálaigh resigned on 22 October after Dáil Éireann supported the minister in a motion of no confidence.^[3]

Nomination process

Under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland, a candidate for president could be nominated by:

at least twenty of the 204 serving members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, or
at least four of 31 councils of the administrative counties, including county boroughs, or
Themselves, if a former or incumbent president.

Fianna Fáil leader Jack Lynch proposed as the party's presidential election candidate Patrick Hillery, retiring European Commissioner for Social Affairs and former Minister for External Affairs. Charles Haughey, a critic of Lynch, proposed Joseph Brennan, TD for Donegal–Leitrim and a former Minister for Social Welfare. Hillery easily won the party nomination.

The government parties, Fine Gael and the Labour Party, did not nominate a candidate due to the row over Ó Dálaigh's resignation and the government's role in it. As no other candidate was nominated, it was not necessary to proceed to a ballot for the election.

Result

Patrick Hillery was inaugurated as president on Friday, 3 December.

Notes and References

The powers and functions of the president were exercised and performed by the Presidential Commission from the resignation of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh on 22 October until the inauguration of Patrick Hillery on 3 December.
It was widely believed at the time, including by Ó Dálaigh himself, that Donegan's actual words were "thundering bollocks and fucking disgrace", and that the version published by the media was sanitised. However, the one journalist present at the occasion (a correspondent for The Cork Examiner newspaper) has always insisted that the actual words used were "thundering disgrace" and nothing else. Of more offence was Donegan's comment that "the fact is the army must stand behind the state", a comment which the President interpreted as implying that he, the Army's Commander-in-Chief, did not. Donegan was ultimately demoted from cabinet on 2 December, the day before Hillery took office as president, and received treatment for his drink problem.
Web site: Dáil Éireann Debate: Call for Resignation of Minister: Motion. 21 October 1976. 1 September 2018. Houses of the Oireachtas. 1 September 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180901182621/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1976-10-21/4/. live.