John Bruton

Clongowes 1959-1965 I John Bruton

John Bruton (b.1947), taoiseach and European Union ambassador to the United States, is a native of Dunboyne, County Meath, who attended Clongowes in 1959-65. He studied at UCD and was called to the bar. He was elected Fine Gael TD for Meath in 1969, aged only twenty-two, and served as a junior minister in the 1973-7 nationalcoalition government. He was minister for finance in the 1981-2 coalition government, and again in 1986-7. In 1990 he was elected unopposed as leader of Fine Gael. As a politician he saw himself as a Christian Democrat, more in the tradition of John Redmond than the republican revolutionaries, although he greatly admired Sean Lemass and was very open to reform and new ideas. He became taoiseach when Fine Gael joined Labour and Democratic Left in the rainbow coalition of 1994-7, which is generally judged to have been a very successful government. The rapidly expanding economy was well managed, progress was made with the difficult Northern Ireland situation and divorce introduced. During a successful Irish presidency of the EU, he helped finalise the stability and growth pact to govern the management of the single European currency. He addressed a joint session of the American Congress. Although his party gained seats in the 1997 general election, Labour losses left him unable to form a government. He retired from Irish politics in 2004. A passionate supporter of European integration, he played a leading role in the 2004 convention to draft a new European constitution. He served as ambassador of the European Union to the United States in 2004–9. Subsequently he became president of the newly formed financial services body, IFSC Ireland. He was elected president of the Clongowes Union for the bicentenary year of 2014-15. His brother, Richard Bruton (OC 1965-70), also a Fine Gael TD, was minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation in 1994-7 and became minister for enterprise and employment in 2011.