Martin Mansergh was one of the most influential figures in Irish public life for almost four decades.
Mansergh, who died during a visit to Western Sahara with other former parliamentarians on Friday, was 78 years old.
While he served as a TD and a minister of state between 2007 and 2011, it was as a government adviser during the Northern peace process that he probably made his greatest contribution to the State.
A member of an Anglo-Irish family who held land in Tipperary since the Cromwellian plantation, Mansergh was born in England. His father Nicholas, who was one the foremost historians of his day, wrote an influential book called The Irish Question.
READ MORE
Martin Mansergh was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and went to university at Oxford where he studied politics, philosophy and economics going on to complete a doctorate on pre-revolutionary French history.
After graduation he opted for a career in the Irish rather than the British civil service, joining the Department of Foreign Affairs as a third secretary in 1974. He was promoted to first secretary in 1977 and so impressed Charles Haughey that he was offered a job as a special adviser to the taoiseach.
He surprised his colleagues in Foreign Affairs by giving up a permanent and pensionable position, as well as bright prospects in the diplomatic service, to risk his future in the political world.
He worked closely with Haughey in government and in opposition during the rest of the Fianna Fáil leader’s career. His English accent and his academic approach made him an incongruous figure in Fianna Fáil, but his influence on the leader, highlighted in Gary Murphy’s recent detailed biography of Haughey, cannot be overstated.
Mansergh’s association with Haughey earned him the deep suspicion of Fine Gael’s Garret FitzGerald, particularly after Haughey rejected the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and sought to influence leading Irish American politicians to oppose it.
However, when Haughey became taoiseach again in 1987, with Mansergh acting as his chief adviser on Northern Ireland, he implemented the agreement despite his earlier denunciations.
It was during this period that Mansergh began tentative approaches to Irish republican movement with Fr Alec Reid acting as an intermediary. These contacts did not bear fruit during Haughey’s time in office, but when Albert Reynolds became leader in early 1992 he retained Mansergh as his adviser on the North and encouraged him to develop his approach.
Seán Duignan, who was appointed as government press secretary by Reynolds, provides a vivid pen picture of Mansergh at this time. “In one of his most astute moves Reynolds decided that Mansergh remained essential to the Northern Ireland game plan. Fianna Fáil positively delighted in their very own Protestant republican, complete with distinguished Anglo-Irish pedigree and Oxford honours ... Reynolds shared their enthusiasm clearly regarding Mansergh as his most valuable adviser,” he wrote.
In his book One Spin on the Merry-Go-Round, Duignan recounts how Mansergh was a brilliant theorist, but was practical in his approach to problems and was every bit as republican as portrayed by admirers and detractors.
Mansergh was closely involved in the moves that led to the IRA ceasefire and when Reynolds suddenly lost office at the end of 1994 the new taoiseach, John Bruton, asked him to stay on as Northern adviser. However, after giving Bruton a detailed briefing, Mansergh opted to go into opposition with Fianna Fáil.
He was back to his position of influence when Bertie Ahern became taoiseach in 1997 and was involved in the complex negotiations that ultimately led to the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
He decided to enter electoral politics in 2002, running for Fianna Fáil in Tipperary South. He narrowly lost, but was elected to the Seanad and made it to the Dáil in the 2007 general election.
He became a weekly columnist with The Irish Times but relinquished the position in advance of the 2007 election. He was appointed as minister of state at the Department of Finance in 2008, but lost his seat in the Fianna Fáil meltdown of 2011 that followed the financial crisis.
In more recent times he was appointed by Enda Kenny as the vice-chair of the advisory committee on the Decade of Centenaries.
Mansergh is survived by his wife Elizabeth and his five children.
