Oliver J. Flanagan

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Oliver J. Flanagan (22 May 1920 – 26 April 1987) was an Irish Fine Gael politician.

Oliver J. Flanagan was born in Mountmellick, County Laois in May 1920. He was educated at Mountmellick Boys National School and worked as an auctioneer following his education. Flanagan first became involved in politics in 1942 when he was elected as a councillor to Laois County Council, a position he would hold for almost forty-five years. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1943 general election as a Teachta Dála for the Laois-Offaly constituency, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to have been elected to the Dáil until that time. He had stood for election on the Monetary Reform ticket, an anti-semitic and Social Credit party confined to his own constituency which proposed reducing the supposed Jewish stranglehold on the financial system. His election owed more, however, to local discontent with the Fianna Fáil government, especially on the question of old-age pensions, and to the candidate's own extraordinary personal charisma, than any single aspect of his programme.

In Flanagan's maiden speech in the Dáil he clearly demonstrated that he was a convinced anti-semite by launching an attack against Ireland's Jewish community. He said: "How is it that we do not see any of these Emergency Orders directed against the Jews who crucified Our Saviour 1,900 years ago and who are crucifying us every day of the week? There is one thing that Germany did and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country it does not matter a hair's breadth what laws you make. Where the bees are there is honey and where the Jews are there is money."^[1] Though later in life he was to repudiate these sentiments, subsequent public speeches of a marked anti-Semitic character showed that this notorious address had been no isolated aberration.

The following year in the 1944 general election he doubled his vote to 9,856 first preferences as against 4,377 the previous year. In 1947 he caused controversy when he alleged that members of the Fianna Fáil government had committed fraud in relation to the sale of the Locke's distillery in Kilbeggan, County Westmeath. In the Locke Tribunal Report these allegations were proved to be unfounded and the Tribunal censured Flanagan for reckless statements and economy with the truth. The Judges said that Flanagan was "very uncandid and much disposed to answer unthinkingly and as if he were directing his replies elsewhere than to the Tribunal." In the 1948 general election his vote soared even more.

Flanagan remained an Independent until 1950 when he joined Fine Gael. Four years later he was appointed to the government as a Parliamentary Secretary. In 1958 Fine Gael were in Opposition and Flanagan became front bench spokesperson on Lands. In 1976 Flanagan was appointed Minister for Defence by Liam Cosgrave, following Paddy Donegan switching Departments after his "thundering disgrace" remark. He served in this position until 1977. Flanagan remained a TD until 1987 when he retired from politics due to ill health. In the 1987 general election, his son Charles Flanagan was elected to succeed him.

Flanagan, known as a strong social conservative and often derided by Irish liberals and urbanites as a provincial fundamentalist clown, was famously quoted on the chat show, The Late Late Show, that there was "no sex in Ireland before television." His support never waned in his own constituency, however, in large measure the result of his exceptionally assiduous attention to individual voters' petitions and concerns. He was in most respects the epitome of the successful populist, and a shrewd follower of the maxim that "all politics is local." Notably though rarely ostentatiously pious, Flanagan was secretly a Knight of Saint Columbanus and in 1978 was conferred a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the then Pope John Paul I.

[edit] Political career

Political offices
Preceded by Gerald Bartley	Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture 1954–1957	Succeeded by Office Abolished
Preceded by Newly Created Office	Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence 1975–1976	Succeeded by John M. Kelly
Preceded by Liam Cosgrave	Minister for Defence 1976–1977	Succeeded by Bobby Molloy
	Father of the Dáil 1981–1987	Succeeded by Neil Blaney

This page incorporates information from the Oireachtas Members Database

[edit] References

1. ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 91 - 09 July, 1943 — antisemitic speech to the Dáil by Oliver J. Flanagan