1974 Irish presidential election

The 1974 Irish presidential election resulted from the sudden death in office of President Erskine H. Childers. Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was elected unopposed as the fifth president of Ireland.

1974 Irish presidential election

← 1973 18 December 1974 (Unopposed) 1976 →

Nominee Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh Party Fianna Fáil

President before election Erskine H. Childers Fianna Fáil Elected President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh Independent

Nomination process

Childers died on 17 November 1974. On 21 November, the Minister for Local Government issued a ministerial order setting 3 December as the date for close of nominations and 18 December as the date of the election.^[1]

Under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland, a candidate for president could be nominated by:

• at least twenty of the 204 serving members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, or
• at least four of 31 councils of the administrative counties, including county boroughs.

Agreed candidate

Initially all parties privately agreed to nominate the late president's widow, Rita Childers.^[2] Before she was informed of the plan, however, a mix-up led to the collapse of the arrangement.^[3] A partially deaf Fine Gael Teachta Dála, identified in some reports as Tom O'Donnell,^[4] confirmed the secret arrangement upon mishearing a journalist's question asking about the decision of a local council's nomination of Childers as president, having assumed that the cross-party decision was made public.^[3] Fianna Fáil leader Jack Lynch, thinking the party was set up, subsequently withdrew from the agreement and nominated Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh instead.^[3] The parties agreed to the new arrangement due to a number of external factors, including a sluggish economy and The Troubles.^[3]

Ó Dálaigh had served as Attorney General from 1951 to 1953, as a judge of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1973, as Chief Justice from 1961 to 1973, and had been serving as a judge of the European Court of Justice from 1973 at the time of his nomination. All parties agreed to Ó Dálaigh's nomination. As no other candidate was nominated, it was not necessary to proceed to a ballot for his election.

Result

1974 Irish presidential election[5]
Candidate	Nominated by
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh		Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour Party

Ó Dálaigh was inaugurated as president on Thursday, 19 December 1974.

References

1. "December 18th poll if Presidency contested". The Irish Times. 22 November 1974.
2. Regan, Mary (10 May 2010). "Rita Childers dies peacefully aged 95". Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
3. "The best President we never had". Irish Independent. 15 May 2010. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
4. "Presidential campaigns are not getting dirtier - they are just more public". The Tuam Herald. 26 October 2011. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
5. "Presidential Elections 1938–2011" (PDF). Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. p. 30. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 December 2017. Retrieved 1 September 2018.