Patrick McGilligan

Patrick Joseph McGilligan (12 April 1889 – 15 November 1979) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as the 14th Attorney General of Ireland from 1954 to 1957, Minister for Finance from 1948 to 1951, Minister for External Affairs from 1927 to 1932 and Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1924 to 1932. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1923 to 1965. He was educated at St Columb's College in Derry; Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare and University College Dublin.

Lawyer and politician McGillgan joined Sinn Féin and in 1916 was expelled from his golf club for wearing an emblem supporting the party. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to be elected as an MP at the 1918 general election. McGilligan was called to the bar in 1921.

Minister for Industry and Commerce He was elected as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for the National University at a by-election held on 3 November 1923. His time in Government was marked by economic retrenchment and a focus on low taxation. At the beginning of his time in office he declared that "People may have to die in this country and may have to die of starvation". Between 1924 and 1932, McGilligan served as Minister for Industry and Commerce, notably pushing through the Shannon hydroelectric scheme, then the largest hydroelectricity project in the world. In 1927, he set up the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), and also the Agricultural Credit Corporation.

During this period in opposition from 1932 to 1948, McGilligan built up a law practice and became a professor of constitutional and international law at University College Dublin. When the National University Dáil constituency was abolished in 1937 (before being recreated in the Seanad in 1938), McGilligan was elected as TD for Dublin North-West.

Inter-Party governments In 1948, McGilligan was appointed Minister for Finance in the first Inter-Party Government. As Minister, he undertook some major reforms. He instigated a new approach where the government invested radically in capital projects. Colleagues however complained of his frequent absence from cabinet and the difficulty of contacting him at the Department of Finance. Between 1954 and 1957, he served as Attorney General, a job in which, as he admitted, he felt far more at home than as Minister for Finance. He lost his seat at the 1965 general election. He then retired from politics, having served for over 40 years.

Death and legacy Patrick McGilligan died in Dublin on 15 November 1979; at the age of ninety. A later Attorney General, John M. Kelly in the preface to his definitive text, The Irish Constitution (1980), noted the remarkable number of senior judges who were former students of McGilligan and suggested that given his own firm belief in the value of judicial review, he deserves much of the credit for the remarkable development of Irish law in this field since the early 1960s.