Garret FitzGerald

Garret FitzGerald (born February 9, 1926, Dublin, Irish Free State—died May 19, 2011, Dublin, Ireland) was the taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland (June 1981–March 1982, December 1982–March 1987), as leader of the Fine Gael party in coalition with the Labour Party.

FitzGerald was born into a political family of revolutionary persuasions during the infancy of the Irish Free State; his father was the free state’s first minister of external affairs. He was educated at University College and King’s Inns, Dublin, and qualified as a barrister. Instead of practicing law, however, in 1959 he became an economics lecturer in the department of political economy at University College, Dublin, and a journalist. He joined the Fine Gael party and in 1969 was elected to Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament). He later gave up his university lectureship to become minister for foreign affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–77). When the coalition government was resoundingly defeated in the general elections of 1977, Cosgrave yielded leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald, who proceeded to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly lost power in 1982 when political instability triggered two snap elections.

In his prime ministry, FitzGerald pushed for liberalization of Irish laws on divorce, abortion, and contraception and also strove to build bridges to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In 1985 he and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish (Hillsborough) Agreement, giving Ireland a consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland. After his party lost in the election of 1987, he resigned as its leader, and he subsequently retired in 1992.

FitzGerald was the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).