Brief Biography:

The son of Desmond Fitzgerald, the first foreign minister of the Irish Free State (1922-27), Garret Fitzgerald was born in Dublin and educated at Belvedere College and University College Dublin (UCD) graduating with a first in History and French. From 1947-58 he worked within Aer Lingus but in 1959 he returned to UCD as a lecturer in Economics (1959-73) and completed his Ph.D. in 1969. His first involvement in politics as a public representative came in 1965 when he was nominated by Fine Gael (FG) to sit in the Irish Senate (1965-69). Then at the 1969 general election he stood for FG and was returned to the Dáil representing the constituency of Dublin South-East (1969-92). Following the return to power of FG in coalition with the Labour Party in 1973, Fitzgerald was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs (1973-77). Amongst his duties in this post was to serve as a member of the Irish government's delegation at the negotiations that produced the Sunningdale Agreement (1973). When FG lost the 1977 general election he replaced Cosgrave as Leader of FG (1977-87) and sought to rebuild and modernise the party. This succeeded to the extent that in June 1981 Fitzgerald became Taoiseach as FG and Labour formed a minority government which lasted until January 1982. Within months however after yet another general election in November 1982, he returned to head another FG-Labour coalition which on this occasion had an overall majority, and as a result remained in power until 1987.

As Taoiseach the approach taken by Fitzgerald to Northern Ireland was to be marked by a number of key developments. He was anxious to improve relations between the British and Irish governments and in 1981 agreed to the establishment of an Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council to provide a formal structure under which further discussions could take place. Then in 1983 he set up the New Ireland Forum (NIF) in Dublin and with representatives of the main political parties in the Republic along with the main nationalist party in the north, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). This body set out to try to provide a new framework for Irish constitutional nationalism. Although the final report of the NIF failed to win the unanimous support of all those involved and was later dismissed out of hand by the British government, it did form the basis for a fresh round of negotiations between London and Dublin. These eventually led to the two governments signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) in November 1985. This provided for the setting up of an Anglo-Irish Conference allowing the interests of northern nationalists to be raised by the Irish government through ongoing contacts with the British authorities through a secretariat and regular ministerial meetings.

For Fitzgerald the AIA was also regarded as a success in strengthening the position of the SDLP against the growing electoral threat posed by the republican movement in Northern Ireland, which had manifested itself in the success enjoyed by Sinn Féin since the hunger strikes of the early 1980s. This was balanced however by his disappointment at the hostile response of unionist opinion in Northern Ireland to the AIA. When the FG-Labour coalition broke up in January 1987 he was forced into calling an election which saw his party perform badly and in the aftermath of the disappointing result, he stood down immediately as party leader. Although he retired from active politics in 1992 Fitzgerald has continued to comment widely on Northern Ireland and other matters.

Book References:

Elliott, Sydney. and Flackes, W.D. (1999), Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968-1999. Belfast: Blackstaff Press.
Fitzgerald, Garret. (1991), All in a Life: An Autobiography. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.
Maye, Brian. (1993), Fine Gael 1923-1987. A General History with Biographical Sketches of Leading Members. Dublin: Blackwater.
McRedmond, Louis. (ed.) (1998), Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th-century Biography. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.

Web Sources:

http://www.rte.ie/culture/millennia/people/fitzgeraldgarret.html

[Entry written by B.Lynn - 12 November 2002]