\u201cThe historians have no interest for me,\u201d Lemass declared during one of his frank, expansive and consistently revealing post-retirement interviews with businessman Dermot Ryan. \u201cIn 50 or 100 years\u2019 time they will be judging the events of this period with completely wrong standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
For once, Lemass\u2019s typically blunt assessment should not be taken at face value. Shortly after leaving the taoiseach\u2019s office in 1966, he agreed to Ryan\u2019s request for a lengthy series of conversations about his life and times. Clearly, this gruff and reticent character must have seen at least some merit in having his views recorded for posterity.<\/p>\n
The famously efficient Lemass would certainly be aggrieved to know his memoir is more than half a century behind schedule. Ryan\u2019s project resulted in 22 hours of audio, but he postponed plans for a book and documentary following the collapse of his tourism company. <\/p>\n
The tapes were eventually handed over to Lemass\u2019s family, who donated them to UCD and allowed extracts to be printed by this newspaper in 2018. Now Ronan McGreevy<\/a> has given Ryan\u2019s precious archive the treatment it deserves, skilfully editing a 273,000-word transcript into themed chapters with plenty of commentary and biographical information to plug the gaps.<\/p>\n All this context is sorely needed, since Ryan was not exactly trying to put Lemass on the psychiatrist\u2019s couch. There are no questions about young Se\u00e1n\u2019s inner-city childhood, the accident in which he fatally shot his infant brother Herbert or how another sibling and fellow anti-Treaty IRA man, Noel, was tortured and murdered by Free State forces in the Dublin Mountains. <\/p>\n Once asked by a journalist to describe his role in Ireland\u2019s revolutionary period, Lemass (who may well have killed a British agent in bed on Bloody Sunday), teared up and replied, \u201cTerrible things were done by both sides … I\u2019d prefer not to talk about it.\u201d He presumably told Ryan something similar, since these interviews only begin with his election to Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>\u2019s ruling body after the Civil War. Apart from a few personal reflections on being a workaholic or enjoying a flutter, he largely remains in his comfort zone of politics, economics and the mechanics of running a government. <\/p>\n [\u00a0Lemass did not want to keep old divisions alive, Taoiseach says at launch of new bookOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Even so, the academics who Lemass disdained so much will find rich pickings here. Despite publicly dubbing Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> \u201ca slightly constitutional party\u201d, he forcefully explains why \u00c9amon de Valera<\/a>\u2019s new movement gave him a chance to swap rigid ideology for practical power. <\/p>\n Lemass makes no apology for the protectionist policies that defined his several tenures as minister for industry and commerce, arguing \u201cthe primary reason was to get Irish people interested in the idea of investing\u201d. Nicknamed \u201cHalf-ounce Lemass\u201d throughout the Emergency due to his strict rationing of tea, he recounts how Britain \u201cdouble-crossed us completely\u201d by reneging on a promise about imports.<\/p>\n Although Lemass insists he never actually wanted to be taoiseach, his testimonies give the strong impression of someone who loved taking bold decisions. He links his conversion to a foreign direct investment model with Ireland\u2019s need to abandon self-pity, boasting that the groundbreaking Programmes for Economic Expansion dispelled a national \u201cair of deep despondency\u201d. \u201cWe seem to be back to square one,\u201d he laments after detailing his historic meetings with Northern Ireland\u2019s prime minister Terence O\u2019Neill, little knowing the Troubles would soon explode. <\/p>\n Lemass sounds more prescient when criticising Britain\u2019s \u201chalf in, half out\u201d attitude to the Common Market, recalling how he had to be \u201ctough as hell\u201d in negotiating a trade agreement with Harold Wilson. Enthusiastic comments about Aer Lingus, free second-level education and European unity bolster his image as a visionary, although a suspicion of \u201cthe leftists in RT\u00c9\u201d confirms in many ways he remained an authoritarian conservative.<\/p>\n If Lemass\u2019s language can occasionally be a little bland, his verdicts on D\u00e1il colleagues are anything but. \u201cA queer sort of crank,\u201d is his scornful dismissal of the maverick socialist No\u00ebl Browne. While paying tribute to his mentor\u2019s \u201creal political genius\u201d, he also complains that by the late 1940s, \u201c[De Valera] never asked you why you did anything; new ideas did not come from him at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Turning to his successor, Lemass coolly observes that Jack Lynch is \u201cnot penetrating enough … [he inspires] trust rather than admiration\u201d. As for his ambitious son-in-law, he optimistically sees Charles Haughey<\/a> \u201creproducing my life all over again in himself\u201d, but notes with considerable understatement that \u201che does much more in the way of social entertaining than I ever did\u201d.<\/p>\n Lemass took a perverse pleasure in telling friends how his daughter Sheila was asked by a teacher to give her father a message and protested, \u201cI don\u2019t know him well enough.\u201d Anyone who reads this landmark publication will put it down feeling they know the father of modern Ireland significantly better.<\/p>\n![\"Seán](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VK2T5UW6IKSFKUKOSMWWDE5X6E.jpg\")
Se\u00e1n Lemass (left) with \u00c9amon de Valera. Photograph: Paddy Whelan <\/p>\n![\"Seán](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ILI3APYCJNCBLKXTHYTPEVYWJU.jpg\")
Se\u00e1n Lemass’s memoir, edited by Ronan McGreevy, has just been published <\/p>\n