Word: lemass
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Until recently, it was axiomatic that "nobody but a fool would invest" in Ireland. Lemass did not hesitate to use public funds wherever private capital was not forthcoming for key projects...
...took over a one-horse power company and built it into a nationwide network that has electrified 76% of all Irish farms. The country had no oil and little coal, but Lemass found an inexhaustible source of industrial fuel in its peat bogs, where huge machines now cut turf that a busy, state-owned processing plant turns into inexpensive, slow-burning briquettes. After a long political wrangle, he got Ireland's state-owned airline off the ground, and has watched happily as Aer Lingus' shamrock-painted planes have made it one of the few government airlines to turn...
...very word socialism terrifies Fianna Fail supporters, who are not only overwhelmingly Catholic but include many small landowners. Yet one-third of all industrial enterprises in Ireland today are bankrolled by the government, which has gone farther toward nationalization than even Britain's Socialists advocate. Lemass says he shares the attitude toward socialism that was expressed in the late Pope John's encyclical, Pacem in Terris: that no political system is undesirable if it benefits the people...
Trim Sails. In 1957, after their children had grown up, Sean and Kathleen Lemass moved from their big old house in Dublin to an unpretentious seven-room bungalow in a pleasant suburb south of the capital, where the Prime Minister is picked up by a government car at 9:45 a.m. each day. He seldom returns until after dinner. Some years ago, Lemass cut down on golf and cards-to the relief of old poker cronies who usually wound up losers when Lemass played-to devote more time to the job. Sturdy (5 ft. 10 in.) and carefully groomed...
Some politicians criticize Lemass for being too much of a pragmatist. "He's a bit of a fly-boy," said Labor Party Leader James Larkin. "He trims his sails to different winds." The greatest challenge that Lemass has to face as a politician is to revitalize drab, unimaginative Fianna Fail, many of whose front-bench heroes of destiny have been around since Dev first came to office. Seven of the 13 members of the Lemass Cabinet are 60 or under, which is a relatively green age in Irish politics but hardly green enough...