Question marks over Éamon de Valera's eligibility to run for President in 1959 caused panic in official circles, according to newly published documents.
The documents – which will be on display as part of a Department of Justice exhibition to mark Culture Night – also show that the issue was treated as top secret and not recorded in the files, apart from "cryptic notes" that were kept in a safe in the Department for years afterwards.
Under the Constitution – which was drawn up on Mr de Valera’s direction – only Irish citizens are eligible to be elected President.
Mr de Valera was born in the United States in 1882, and there was concern among a small group of senior officials and politicians that this might lead to a challenge to his candidacy if he could not prove that he was an Irish citizen.
The issue was raised early in May 1959 by an official in the Department of Local Government, who asked Peter Berry in the Department of Justice how citizenship was determined. The example given was of a person born outside the State in the 1880s, one of whose parents had been born in Ireland.
Mr Berry replied that an application could be made to the courts – not a very helpful suggestion, given that nominations for the presidency were due to close in a matter of days – or that the Minister for Justice could issue a certificate of citizenship, if he was satisfied about the facts of the case.
It soon transpired that the officials were right to be worried about a possible challenge.
When Fine Gael candidate General Seán MacEoin presented his nomination papers on 15 May, 1959, one of the group with him was heard to say that the general could prove that he was an Irishman.
This comment – implying that Mr de Valera would not be able to provide such proof – set alarm bells ringing.
On the same day, Mr de Valera – who was still Taoiseach at the time – asked Justice Minister Oscar Traynor to issue him a certificate of citizenship.
Such requests were usually accompanied by evidence – a birth certificate, or extracts from church registers – but Mr Traynor said he was "satisfied from personal knowledge" that the Taoiseach’s mother was Irish and directed that the Certificate should be issued.
Berry completed the Certificate on May 15. However, in an indication of his sometimes pedantic attention to detail, Mr de Valera asked for a second certificate to be issued, dated May 19, because that was the day on which a judge would rule on whether nominations were valid.
In the event, there was no challenge to Mr de Valera’s eligibility.
But that wasn’t the end of the story, because Traynor instructed Berry to keep the matter to himself and treat it as "strictly confidential". It is not clear why Traynor wanted such secrecy, though he possibly thought the story might be embarrassing for President de Valera, or that questions would be asked about his own handling of the matter.
But if he wanted to keep something quiet, he had the right man in Peter Berry, then the Department’s Assistant Secretary. Berry had been in charge of Justice’s intelligence division since 1941, and had a reputation for obsessive secrecy. [See his Dictionary of Irish Biography entry: Berry, Peter | Dictionary of Irish Biography]
Following the Minister’s instructions, Berry didn’t record the certificate in the official register or in the files of the Department. He kept "cryptic notes", along with the correspondence between Mr de Valera and Traynor, in his office safe. Not only did he not tell his boss, the Department’s Secretary, but he didn’t disclose the story to subsequent Ministers for Justice either.
Berry only revealed the story in 1971, when he was retiring. He told the then Minister for Justice, Des O’Malley, what had happened, and with his agreement wrote a confidential account of the events of 1959. This is the memo which is now being put on display by the Department of Justice.
It is part of a Culture Night exhibition in the Department of Justice called "Archives of Arrival" which looks at migration into Ireland in the early to mid-20th Century, including records relating to some noteworthy historical and political figures.
Read more: Rise and rule - marking 50th anniversary of Éamon de Valera's death
