Kevin O'Higgins

Infobox Politician
name = Kevin O'Higgins


birth_date = birth date|1892|6|7|df=y
birth_place = Laois, Ireland
death_date = death date and age|1927|7|10|1892|6|7|df=y
death_place = Dublin, Ireland
office = Vice-President of the Executive Council
term_start = 6 December 1922
term_end = 10 July 1927
predecessor = Newly created office
successor = Ernest Blythe
party = Cumann na nGaedhael
office2 = Minister for Justice
term_start2 = 30 August 1922
term_end2 = 10 July 1927
predecessor2 = Eamonn Duggan
successor2 = W. T. Cosgrave

Kevin Christopher O'Higgins ( _ga. Caoimhín Críostóir Ó hUigín; 7 June 1892 – 10 July 1927) was an Irish politician who served as Vice-President of the Executive Council and Minister for Justice.

Kevin O'Higgins was born in Stradbally, County Laois and was educated at the Jesuit-run Clongowes Wood, at Knockbeg College, at St. Patrick's Seminary at Maynooth, and at University College Dublin. He joined Sinn Féin and was imprisoned in 1918. While he was imprisoned he became MP for Queen's County (Laois).

In 1919 O'Higgins was appointed Assistant Minister for Local Government. He was strongly in favour of accepting the Treaty in 1921. In 1922 he was elected Teachta Dála (TD) for Leix-Offaly. In the first government he became Minister for Justice and External Affairs, as well as Vice-President of the Executive Council ("Deputy Prime Minister").

Sinn Féin split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In the debate that took place in the Dáil on the Treaty, O'Higgins outlined the reasons for his support thus:

"Last October the Minister of Local Government W. T. Cosgrave and myself came deliberately to the decision that we would not recommend any settlement involving allegiance to the king of England. That is true, but I am not ashamed to plead guilty to the fact that I consider political realities and the consequence of my vote... I would have gone back to war rather than recommend a settlement involving allegiance if the Treaty had not been signed. But I face the political situation and realise that some of the biggest personalities in our movement ... have considered this is the last ounce [that] could be got from England, and who, knowing the situation better than I do, attached their names to that document."

When running for election in 1922, he told a crowd:

"I have not abandoned any political aspirations to which I have given expression in the past, but in the existing circumstances I advise the people to trust to evolution rather than revolution for their attainment."

When the Irish Civil War broke out he tried to restore law and order by introducing tough measures. He feared, as did many of his colleagues, that a prolonged civil conflict would give the British an excuse, in the eyes of the world, to reassert their control in the Free State. Between 1922 and 1923 Kevin O'Higgins ordered the execution of seventy-seven republican prisoners of war including Rory O'Connor who had been best man at his wedding. He was given a nominal posting to the Irish Army during the early stages of the war, which he described as "very short, though very brilliant". General Richard Mulcahy was less impressed, recalling that "O'Higgins' personal presence in the Adjutant-General's office at that time (July–August 1922) was the personal presence of a person who didn't understand what was going on". In reprisal for O'Higgins' role in the executions of captured republicans, the Anti-Treaty IRA murdered his father and burned his family home in Stradbally, county Laois.

O'Higgins also set up "An Garda Síochána" (an unarmed police force). As Minister for External Affairs he successfully increased Ireland's autonomy within the Commonwealth of Nations. O'Higgins was seen very much as the "strong man" of the Cabinet. He once described himself as one of "the most conservative-minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution". Though many of his opponents characterised him as having fascist tendencies, O'Higgins was to the fore in resisting the small wing of Cumann na nGaedhael who looked to Italy for inspiration. He was not a strong proponent of gender equality and when asked by Labour Party leader Thomas Johnson in the Dáil whether he believed giving women the vote had been a success, O'Higgins replied, "I would not like to pronounce an opinion on it in public." He famously derided the socialist influenced Democratic Programme of the First Dáil as "mostly poetry". Before his death, he toyed with Arthur Griffith's idea of a dual monarchy in order to end the Partition of Ireland.

On 10 July 1927, O'Higgins was assassinated at the age of 35 on the Booterstown Avenue side of Cross Avenue in Blackrock, County Dublin while on his way to Mass by three anti-Treaty members of the IRA, Timothy Coughlin, Bill Gannon and Archie Doyle, in revenge for his part in the executions of IRA men during the civil war. He was afforded a state funeral and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

His brother Thomas F. O'Higgins and nephews Tom O'Higgins and Michael O'Higgins were later elected TDs.

None of the three assassins was ever apprehended or charged, but Coughlin was killed in 1928 by a police informer in Dublin. The other two benefited from the amnesty to IRA members issued by Éamon de Valera upon his assumption of power in 1932. Doyle remained a prominent IRA militant and took part in various acts in the early 1940s. He lived to a ripe old age {d.1987} and continued to take pride in having killed O'Higgins. Gannon {d.1965} joined the Communist Party of Ireland and had a central role in organising Irish volunteers for the Spanish Civil War, and in party publications his part in assassinating O'Higgins is downplayed.

ee also

*Families in the Oireachtas

External links

* [http://www.ohigginsclan.com/kevin_o'higgins.htm Kevin O'Higgins – Biography on the O'Higgins Clan website]

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