[7] Her son would later describe his political objective as the creation of a pluralist Ireland where the northern Protestants of his mother's family tradition and the southern Catholics of his father's could feel equally at home.

[10] Following his university education, in 1947, he started working with Aer Lingus, the state airline of Ireland, and became an authority on the strategic economic planning of transport.

During this time, he wrote many newspaper articles, was the Irish correspondent for British magazine The Economist,[6] and was encouraged to write on National Accounts and economics by the features editor[who?]

Despite his pro-Treaty roots, several members of Fianna Fáil, including Charles Haughey and Michael Yeats, suggested that he should join that party.

The difference in political outlook and FitzGerald's ambitions for the Fine Gael leadership resulted in profound tensions[citation needed] between the two men.

[17] After the 1973 general election, Fine Gael entered office in a coalition government with the Labour Party, with Liam Cosgrave as Taoiseach.

His appointment to Iveagh House (the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs) would have a significant effect on FitzGerald's career and the future of Fine Gael.

[19] FitzGerald's policy towards church-state relations, however, brought him into a confrontation with the Roman Catholic church, whose "special position" in the Republic had been enshrined in the constitution until the Referendum of December 1972.

FitzGerald, in 1973, met the Cardinal Secretary of State, Agostino Casaroli, and proposed to modify the Republic's Constitution further to remove laws with overtly Catholic foundations, such as the bans on divorce and contraception, as well as to relax the public stigmas in Northern Ireland towards mixed religious marriages and integrated education.

To the surprise of many, FitzGerald excluded Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O'Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.

FitzGerald's response was, in the words of Eamonn Sweeney, to "lay all the blame for the hunger strikers on the republican movement and to suggest an immediate unilateral end to their military campaign".

Fine Gael had to scrap its plans for tax cuts in the run-up to the election, and a draconian mid-year budget was introduced almost immediately.

In light of this loss of supply, FitzGerald went to Áras an Uachtaráin to request an immediate dissolution of the Dáil from the president, Patrick Hillery.

When he got there, he was informed that senior opposition figures (and some Independent TDs), including the Opposition leader (and ex-Taoiseach) Charles Haughey, Brian Lenihan and Sylvester Barrett, had made a series of telephone calls demanding that Hillery refuse the dissolution, as he was constitutionally allowed to do when it was advised by a Taoiseach who has "ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann."

However, a third general election within eighteen months in November 1982 resulted in FitzGerald being returned as Taoiseach for a second time, heading a Fine Gael–Labour coalition with a working majority.

Pursuing "fiscal rectitude" to reduce a high national debt required a firmer control of public spending than Labour found easy to accept.

The harmonious relationship the Taoiseach developed with his Tánaiste, Dick Spring, successfully avoided a collapse of the coalition for more than four years, despite tensions between other Ministers, and enabled the government to survive.

[citation needed] The measures proposed by FitzGerald's Minister for Finance, Alan Dukes, were utterly unacceptable to the Labour Party, which was under enormous pressure from its support base to maintain public services.

When FitzGerald attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1985, his rival Haughey suggested it had links with NATO, thus contravening Ireland's official position of neutrality.

[25] A proposal to allow divorce was defeated in a 1986 referendum; however, the law on contraception was liberalised under the Health (Family Planning) (Amendment) Act 1985.

[26] While the agreement was repudiated and condemned by Unionists, it was said to become the basis for developing trust and joint action between the governments, which in time would ultimately bring about the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 and the subsequent republican and loyalist cease-fires.

[18] FitzGerald attempted to reshuffle his cabinet in February 1986, but certain ministers resisted – notably Barry Desmond, who refused to move from his Health and Social Welfare portfolio.

It struck an immediate chord with many disenchanted Fine Gael supporters who had tired of the failure to address the economic crisis fully and who yearned for a coherent right-wing policy from FitzGerald.

Stymied by the economic crisis, FitzGerald tried to rescue some of his ambitions to reform the state, and he proposed, in the middle of 1986, a referendum to change the constitution to allow for divorce.

Lacking a parliamentary majority, FitzGerald sought a dissolution of the Dáil, which was granted, continuing to lead a minority Fine Gael government until after the election.

In his Irish Times column, he was a frequent critic of the loss of competitiveness and the inflation caused by the tax cuts and excessive public spending increases of the Celtic Tiger era.

In a statement, Irish president Mary McAleese hailed FitzGerald as "a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people".

[44] Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who served as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalled "an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country".

[47] British prime minister David Cameron, who was also in Ireland, paid tribute to FitzGerald's "huge contribution to the peace process bringing reconciliation for all that had happened in the past".