Dr Maurice Moynihan (1902-1999) was arguably the most powerful, and elusive civil servant in the first four decades of the independent Irish State, not least during de Valera's long political dominance between 1932 and 1959. This is the first comprehensive analysis of Moynihan's influence as the principal advisor to three Irish prime ministers. As well as being cabinet secretary for over two decades, a position which allowed him to attend meetings of the Irish Government as of right, Moynihan was also a recognised constitutional expert who chaired the committee that wrote the new Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, in 1937. Moynihan also played a pivotal role in stabilising the relationship between the Republic of Ireland, and its troubled neighbour across the border, Northern Ireland. This study critically analyses his cautious approach to church-state relations, emergency powers and the constitutional aspects of foreign affairs. The emphasis is on Moynihan as a thinker as much as an administrator. The book also explains how Moynihan came to exert such a hold over Éamon de Valera. Both had taken different sides in the Irish Civil War between 1922 and 1923, yet de Valera, the one-time republican firebrand, rarely made any decision of consequence during his subsequent tenure as Taoiseach without consulting first with Moynihan, a Free State civil servant who was deeply critical of de Valera's behaviour prior to the Civil War. This book will attract not just students of Irish history and Anglo-Irish relations, but also constitutional scholars who are interested in the way newly independent states looked above all to legal reform as a way of asserting their autonomy against the metropole.
