ONE OF the most memorable times of Paul Connaughton’s life was during an election he lost.
“I contested the byelection in 1975 and Micheál Kitt won that day defending his father’s seat,” the Fine Gael Galway East TD and former minister of state said.
All the party’s leading lights visited his constituency. “Liam Cosgrave was taoiseach at that time. As green as I was, how wonderful it was to be sitting beside the taoiseach in the State car. If I live to be 100, I’ll always remember that.”
That byelection was his first real taste of politics. “I liked what I saw, I have to say. They used to have final rallies, which were a huge part of the campaign. One was in Glenamaddy. There were a couple of thousand people there on a Saturday night in March,” he said.
“Liam Cosgrave; Richie Ryan, minister for finance; Tom Fitzpatrick, minister for lands; minister for education Dick Burke and several other lesser lights were there. It was some start to political life.”
He said he is as enthusiastic now as he was on his first day in politics. “It was as nice a career choice as one could wish for in that every day for 33 years, from 1977 in the Seanad and 1981 in the Dáil, I met thousands and thousands of the nicest people.”
But, he said, “you’re not exactly as good at 66 as you are at 26. It is a young person’s game. You need new thinking and a new way of doing things. The time has come to give the younger generation the opportunity.”
His son, Paul Connaughton jnr, has been selected as a candidate with Senator Ciarán Cannon and Cllr Jimmy McClearn to run in the four-seat constituency. As for electoral family dynasties, the Fine Gael view is that the electorate will decide.
Since the 1970s, Mr Connaughton said, “there have been remarkable changes. When I was elected to the Seanad first, there was no such a thing as secretaries for either TDs or senators. There were six of us in one room and one phone between us. Depending on your hunger for the job, you had to be in very early or very late at night to get your crack at the phone.
“For most of the queries to government departments, the writing was in longhand. We used to use carbon copies for the written letters” to keep records. In 1982, taoiseach Garret FitzGerald appointed him minister of state for agriculture.
“I had five great years at a very exciting time in the world of agriculture,” he said.
He added that he will always remember the signing of the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985, which he described as an outstanding achievement. “We thought peace was going to come a lot quicker than it did,” he said. That was the first time the Republic had any say in the North. That was an occasion I will always remember.”
He recalled “how angry I was at the time when Brian Lenihan, God rest his soul, was foreign affairs minister and he was trying to get Irish America against the agreement. I particularly disliked that.”
He said he “didn’t really have any lows” but “both in government and out I would have preferred that my input for the handicapped would have been better than it was”.
As for the general election, he said “there’s no election easy” and “politics is so fickle”.
He said of his party leader: “I like Enda Kenny. I would consider Kenny a friendly neighbour. I’m hoping and wishing and I’d love to see him as taoiseach. If given a chance, he’ll always do the right thing.”
