'Jack is back' papers wrote following Fianna Fáil's success at 1977 election 

The 20th Dáil was “dying slowly in Leinster House”, the Evening Echo reported under the headline ‘Taoiseach for Park tonight?’ on Wednesday, May 25, 1977, as the Finance Bill was raced through the committee stage of what we called “the steamrolling process”.

Our headline proved prescient, and taoiseach Liam Cosgrave did indeed go to Phoenix Park that night, successfully seeking from President Hillery the dissolution of the Dáil. 

We had also correctly predicted the date of election day: Thursday, June 16, although we did hedge our bets that it might also be the day before.

The Fine Gael and Labour coalition government hoped to remain in power, and local government minister Jim Tully’s Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974, which redrew constituency boundaries, gerrymandering them in favour of the government parties, was supposed to help.

Instead, the notorious “Tullymander” would backfire disastrously for the coalition when Fianna Fáil increased its percentage of the vote.

Panicked that Fianna Fáil might not win, Jack Lynch and his team drew up a giveaway manifesto, including measures such as the abolition of motor tax and of rates on houses. 

The country would later repent at leisure on some of those promises, but they proved hugely popular with the electorate in 1977.

Capitalising on Jack Lynch’s huge popularity, Fianna Fáil’s director of elections Seamus Brennan ran an American-style campaign which saw the party leader tour the country to the soundtrack of Fianna Fáil’s slogan “Bring Back Jack”.

“A nation is voting” said the Echo on election day, beneath five photos by Des Barry, depicting education minister Peter Barry voting with his wife Margaret in Blackrock; Sister John of St Patrick’s Hospital with Labour’s Senator Pat Kerrigan; Lord Mayor Seán French and Lady Mayoress Patricia French in Farranree; Cork county manager Michael Conlon in Blackrock; and Alderman Sammy Allen, who was ill in bed in St Finbarr’s Hospital.

‘Is it a swing from coalition?’ asked our headline the following day, while below a picture of an anxious-looking Peter Barry, Pat Kerrigan, and councillor Liam Burke at the count centre in Gurranabraher was the answer: “We’ll wait and see, says Taoiseach”.

Our headline on Saturday, June 18, suggested: ‘It could be a majority of 20.’ 

We were wide of the mark, because with 148 seats — up four from the previous election — in the Dáil, 75 were needed for a majority, and Fianna Fáil, gaining 15 seats, won 84, giving it an unprecedented nine-seat majority. 

In fact, it would be the last time any taoiseach would lead a single-party government with an over-all majority.

Fine Gael lost 12 seats, and Labour three, and both the taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and the tánaiste, Brendan Corish, would resign as leaders of their respective parties.

“The ‘Real’ Taoiseach’s magnetism; world recession and consequent internal inflation; disgruntled farmers, faced with real taxation; spiraling prices; all these factors gave the necessary impetus to the most dramatic political somersault in the history of the State,” our front-page editorial said.

In the Cork Examiner that same Saturday, the main headline was an exultant ‘Jack is back!’. 

He was, but — although nobody could have known it at the time — he was not destined to be taoiseach for long: 

“His leadership has now been put beyond question and he can remain at the helm as long as he wishes, and certainly throughout the life of the 21st Dáil,” wrote Dick Brazil on the Evening Echo front page, in hindsight almost tempting fate.

Within two years of Jack Lynch’s greatest victory, the Troubles, a poor showing in the European Parliament elections, two Cork by-election losses, economic woes, industrial relations travails, and chaotic internal party manoeuvring would all conspire to cement his decision to resign as party leader in December 1979. 

Following an intense leadership battle, Charles Haughey narrowly defeated Lynch’s preferred successor, George Colley.

Jack Lynch retired from politics at the 1981 general election.