AK47’s decommissioning is not unprecedented

World of Politics with Harry McGee

The ruthless machinations surrounding the demise of Alan Kelly’s short leadership of the Labour Party was not unprecedented. Nor were the bitter personality differences that underlined it.

We tend to think of internal divisions within parties as a Fianna Fáil speciality (especially when Charles J Haughey was leader) and in Fine Gael (the plotting between supporters of leadership pretenders, John Bruton, Alan Dukes and Michael Noonan in the late 1980s and early 1990s).

But it’s happened in Labour too. If you go back 40 years, you will find a fractious leadership tussle between Frank Cluskey and Michael O’Leary in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Both represented different strands of the party. Cluskey’s background was as a trade unionist and his outlook remained unapologetically working class. While the Cork-born O’Leary had also come into politics from a trade union, he was much more in the mould of the urbanite Dublin middle-class politician.

As a Labour source told journalist Stephen Collins for his book on Dick Spring: “Frank was great with the party but not with the public, while Michael was great with the public but a disaster in the party’.”

After Brendan Corish stood down after the 1977 election, Cluskey narrowly defeated O’Leary in the leadership race. Both candidates tied on eight votes each (only TDs were entitled to vote) after round one. Somebody changed their vote in round two giving Cluskey victory. Afterwards both politicians distrusted each other. It was a variation of the Haughey versus Charles Colley/Des O’Malley animus in Fianna Fáil.

O’Leary became leader almost by default. Cluskey lost his seat in the general election of June 1981. I can’t think of any other opposition leader losing their seat in the modern era. That was a period of great turmoil and political upheaval. There were three elections in 18 months. O’Leary was trying to pursue a policy of coalition with Fine Gael but the party was deeply divided, with a militant wing, which was later expelled from the party.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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