Dr Patrick Hillery: Reluctant president of Ireland

The former president of Ireland Patrick Hillery had a long political career in which periods of comparative inactivity were interspersed with moments of intense controversy. The disputes often involved the most vital of questions, such as whether the Irish Republic should stray from the path of peace at the outbreak of the Northern Ireland Troubles, and whether governments should stand or fall.

Throughout such crises he was viewed as a man of principle, so that many of the tributes which followed his death described him as a figure of integrity. The fact that he served as President of the Republic for 14 years from 1976, being elected unopposed for two terms, is cited as a measure of his acceptability across the Irish political spectrum.

He was a reluctant politician, having qualified as a medical doctor and apparently destined for a life as a country GP in the western county of Clare. But the Fianna Fáil party spotted him and he was elected to the Irish parliament in 1951. In the years that followed he held a variety of cabinet posts such as Education (where he laid the groundwork for the country's present highly effective education system), Labour and Foreign Affairs.

In personal terms he was, as his party colleague David Andrews said yesterday, "a very sociable character, very generous and a very warm individual – altogether he was an all-round good guy". But sterner qualities were called for when the Troubles broke out in the late 1960s, with Fianna Fáil figures such as Charles Haughey and Kevin Boland showing less than full commitment to exclusively peaceful means.

The fact that the then Fianna Fáil leader and prime minister Jack Lynch held the peaceful line was partly due to a moment of high drama at a televised party conference. The normally low-key Hillery seized the microphone to confront the rebels with the impassioned cry: "You can have Boland but you can't have Fianna Fáil."

The Lynch-Hillery line prevailed, though Hillery annoyed London by staging an unannounced visit to the Falls Road in Belfast – Britain described it as "a serious diplomatic discourtesy" – and by appealing for UN involvement in Northern Ireland.

Hillery went on to become Ireland's first European Commissioner, but in the mid-1970s was hastily drafted back from Brussels by Fianna Fáil to become President in the midst of a domestic storm. Again, he was reluctant to take on the job, but again his sense of duty to the party prevailed.

In those days the presidency – since enlivened by two women, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese – was something of a backwater, but in 1982 another storm blew up when Hillery resisted pressure from Haughey to help bring down the opposing coalition government. In this instance Hillery put country before party, famously refusing to take phone calls from Haughey and others.

Probably the most bizarre incident of his career came when he summoned journalists to the presidential mansion to denounce rumours that he had a mistress and was divorcing and resigning as president. Rumours were indeed making the rounds, but none of them was ever substantiated and so far is as known none of them was true.

Since the end of his second term in 1990 he had enjoyed a long and happy retirement, with a reputation as an affable figure who did his duty. The Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern said of him: "In volatile political times, he was a cool head who exercised his powers wisely, and assiduously protected the independence of Ireland's highest office."

David McKittrick

Patrick John Hillery, politician: born Miltown Malbay, Co Clare 2 May 1923; TD (Fianna Fáil) for Clare 1951-73; Medical Officer, Miltown Malbay 1957-59; Coroner for West Clare 1958-59; Minister for Education 1959-65, for Industry and Commmerce 1965-66, for Labour 1966-69, of Foreign Affairs 1969-72; Commissioner for Social Affairs and a Vice-President, Commission of the European Communities 1973-76; President of Ireland 1976-90; married 1955 Dr Maeve Finnegan (one son, and one daughter deceased); died Dublin 12 April 2008.