Word: lemass
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Poor Risk. But in the turbulent years when the Irish rebels fought against Britain's Black and Tans, Sean Lemass grew into a rugged guerrilla fighter in the I.R.A.'s Dublin Brigade. He was jailed by the English four times, escaped once. After the 1921 treaty, by which Britain created the self-governing Irish Free State but retained jurisdiction over the six Protestant counties of Ulster, civil war flared between "pro-treaty" Irishmen and De Valera's followers, who cried that Ireland could not accept partition. Lemass, an officer on De Valera's staff, was captured...
Four Rs. Today's expansion would not have been possible if Sean Lemass had not started laying the groundwork long ago. Lemass is the great-grandson of a hatter who landed in Dublin in 1820. A young-appearing 63, he is by age, if not by political style, a member of the generation that freed Ireland and has ruled it ever since. At school, he learned his four Rs-in the Dublin of 50 years ago, revolution was part of the curriculum-and by the age of 14 had joined the Republican Na Fianna Eireann, a sort...
Though he never returned to prison after his release in 1923, four-time Loser Lemass was plainly a poor matrimonial risk. When he started courting pretty, vivacious Kathleen Hughes, he had the added disadvantage of having to placate her father, a Dublin carpenter and an Anglophile. He warned his daughter: "That boy is always on the run; he'll never be able to make a home for you." Kathleen decided to risk it anyway. They were married in 1924, have a son Noel, who is a Member of Parliament, and three daughters (the eldest, Maureen, is married to Charles...
Heat with Peat. When Sinn Fein broke apart, young Lemass was the chief architect of De Valera's new Fianna Fail (Heroes of Destiny) Party, which came to power in 1932 and has been in office almost continually ever since. At 32, Lemass was the youngest member of De Valera's Cabinet and earned the affectionate Biblical sobriquet "Benjamin" (after Jacob's youngest son). Though Dev had taught mathematics-and is fervently believed by many fond compatriots to be one of the 13 men on earth who comprehend the theory of relativity-the Taoiseach had neither head...
...Lemass faced monumental problems, for during the '30s the government was locked in a vindictive, futile economic war with the English, though it remained economically dependent on Britain. He strove desperately to mobilize enough new industry to supply the nation's basic needs, though at high cost; he also founded the state transport network and organized a national merchant marine in time to keep Ireland fed during World War II, in which he took on the additional job of Minister of Supply, and by brilliant improvisation averted crippling shortages...