1966 presidential election

In 1966, Ireland was due to hold a presidential election. The election was due to be one of significance, as 1966 marked the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. The incumbent, an ageing Éamon de Valera, himself a veteran of the Easter Rising, was initially widely expected to either win easily or, more probably, stand unopposed. O'Higgins, however, was not content with this and attempted to rally Fine Gael to support the Irish republican Seán McBride in a presidential bid. Predictably, this idea did not gain much traction, particularly with the more conservative elements of Fine Gael. However, O'Higgins did not give up on the idea that de Valera should be challenged. His next venture was to petition former Taoiseach and Fine Gael stalwart John A. Costello to stand in the election. O'Higgins, however, was not able to convince Costello, who was now nearing the end of his political career, to run.^[2]

Having campaigned so hard on the idea that someone must challenge de Valera, eventually party members turned the question back on O'Higgins and suggested he himself run. He eventually agreed.^[2]

O'Higgins' campaign was met with immediate difficulty when, at the outset, de Valera declared that he would not conduct a campaign himself, believing that the office of President should be above party politics. In response, RTÉ decided it could not (or would not), cover O'Higgins campaigning as this would be unbalanced in their view. Fine Gael leader Liam Cosgrove responded by arguing that this was unjust, as although de Valera was not formally campaigning, he regularly appeared on RTÉ radio and television in his capacity as president. RTÉ, however, did not change its position.

Undeterred, O'Higgins carried out a dogged grassroots campaign that saw him attend over 130 public meetings across the Republic of Ireland, covering an estimated 22,000 miles around the country over a span of 5 weeks, reportedly attending as many as 3 rallies a night.^[6] O'Higgins' campaign manager was his erstwhile political rival Gerald Sweetman, who despite their differences, helped O'Higgins construct a savvy strategy. Fine Gael presented O'Higgins and his wife Terry as Irish analogues of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy, emphasising their comparative youth to the elderly de Valera.^[2][6] Campaign ads for O'Higgins prominently featured images of O'Higgins surrounded by Terry and their 7 children in shots designed to evoke the spirit of Camelot that had earned the Kennedys much popularity earlier in the decade. The general thrust of the O'Higgins campaign was that O'Higgins represented the future in contrast to the nostalgia of de Valera. Sweetman described the O'Higgins campaign as expressing "the need for a youthful, forward looking president to personify the real Ireland and what it can best contribute to modern civilisation".^[6]

An example of the O'Higgins attempting to emulate modern American politics could be seen on 28 May 1966, when a small light aircraft dropped ballons with Fine Gael slogans on them down onto the city of Limerick during an O'Higgins motorcade procession. Observing these new tactics, the journalist John Healy of the Irish Times observed "The Fine Gael tail is up. It is running as it has not run for a long time. It will be an interesting finish indeed".^[6]

Polling was not yet a feature of Irish politics in 1966; instead parties still generally relied on their constituency branches to provide a sense of grassroots sentiment. When Fianna Fáil received feedback from their branches about the O'Higgins campaign, they were quickly panicked. Although de Valera remained officially committed to not campaigning, he began to make several public appearances on the pretence of commemorating 1916. De Valera's campaign manager was then Minister for Agriculture and future leader of Fianna Fáil Charles Haughey. Responding to the momentum of the O'Higgins campaign, Haughey announced £5.5 million in spending targeted at farmers just five days before polling began.^[6]

The results of the election were agonisingly close; by a margin of just 10,718 votes (1% of the total vote), de Valera managed to etch out a victory. Years later, O'Higgins would remark in his autobiography that he felt he had conducted himself well in the race and was glad he was able to maintain his dignity and that of his family. Paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington's remarks about the battle of Waterloo, O'Higgins described the race as "a close run thing".^[6] As of 2022, the result of the 1966 contest remains the tightest margin of any Irish presidential election.

Deputy leader of Fine Gael

Although not victorious in the 1966 election, O'Higgins' image had been greatly enhanced by the contest; at the 1969 Irish general election O'Higgins moved from the Laois-Offaly constituency to the newly created Dublin County South, where he topped the poll.^[7] In April 1972, O'Higgins was named the first-ever deputy leader of Fine Gael. In this role, O'Higgins was looked at by some in Fine Gael as an intermediary between the liberal and conservative wings of the party. As deputy leader, O'Higgins made a number of trips to Northern Ireland in the face of the emerging Troubles, and was one of the Fine Gael representatives at the funerals of those killed on Bloody Sunday in 1972.^[2]

Anticipating running for president again in May 1973, O'Higgins did not contest the earlier 1973 Irish general election that February. In the aftermath of the general election, his diplomatic skills were once again called upon, as he looked to as a broker between Fine Gael and the Labour party as they attempted to form a governing coalition, which was ultimately successful.^[2]

1973 presidential election

In 1973, O'Higgins was again chosen once again as the Fine Gael candidate in the presidential election. This time he faced former Fianna Fáil Tánaiste and Minister, Erskine H. Childers. Childers was elected by 52% to 48%.