Moynihan, Maurice Gerard (1902–99), civil servant and governor of the Central Bank, was born 19 December 1902 in Tralee, Co. Kerry, fourth child and third son of Maurice Moynihan and Mary Moynihan (née Power), and had four brothers and an elder sister. The Moynihans and the Powers were prominent Kerry Fenians who had been active in the land war. Maurice Moynihan senior remained a member of the IRB until his death in 1918.
Like his two older brothers, Michael and John (qv), Maurice junior was educated at the CBS in Tralee. He learned Irish there and became a fluent speaker. When his father contracted tuberculosis in 1913, Michael became the mainstay of the family. He had made his way through school and university by winning a series of scholarships, and in 1910 won seventh place in the home civil service examinations. In 1914 Michael joined the British army, a decision that caused much division within the family. Back home his father was privy to the plans being hatched for a rising in Kerry. On Easter Saturday 1916 his son Maurice, then a schoolboy of thirteen, saw a tall man, surrounded by RIC and soldiers, being marched through the streets of Tralee. He ran home to tell his father and only realised many years later, from his memory of the expression on his father's face, that he had known the man was Roger Casement (qv). In 1965, when watching the return of Casement's remains to Ireland, he felt that a private as well as a public chapter had closed.
The year 1918 was one of tragedy for the family. Maurice senior died in January and in June Michael was killed in France, a loss that devastated the family. Eighty years later, the memory of the day the telegram arrived at the family home was still a painful one for his younger brother. After Michael's death, John gave up hopes of becoming a priest in order to support the family, the youngest of whom was only five years old. The relationship between John and Maurice became particularly close and remained so.
In 1920 Maurice won scholarships to UCC, where he studied for a B.Comm. under Professor Timothy Smiddy (qv) and also furthered his Irish studies under Tadhg Ó Donnchadha (qv). The war of independence was at its height and one evening he was shot in the leg by a Black and Tan from a passing lorry, an injury that troubled him periodically for the rest of his life. Ironically, his brother John and sister Hannah were more actively involved in the independence struggle. John had joined the Volunteers and later became chairman of the Sinn Féin courts in Tralee, while Hannah was a member of Cumann na mBan. Both were interned during the civil war, which caused further hardship to the family. Maurice graduated with first-class honours from UCC and returned to Tralee to teach at the technical school. One of his students was the Irish-American Mae Conley, whom he married in 1932.
Unlike the rest of his family, Maurice had supported the treaty, and they were unenthusiastic about his decision to apply to the new Free State civil service. Because of the internment of John and Hannah his prospects were not good, but he was helped by James McElligott (qv), then assistant secretary at the Department of Finance. McElligott was a distant relative and had been a friend of Michael Moynihan. He encouraged Maurice to sit for the first competitive examinations in 1925, and he was one of six successful candidates who included León Ó Broin (qv), John Garvin (qv), and A. W. Bayne (qv). He later became private secretary to McElligott and retained a lifelong respect and affection for his mentor.
In 1926, after Fianna Fáil was founded, John Moynihan went to work for Éamon de Valera (qv) and accompanied him to America in 1929–30 when he was setting up the Irish Press. When Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932 John became secretary to the new executive council. His younger brother, who was barely acquainted with the new president, was greatly surprised when de Valera invited him to tea at the dáil restaurant and asked him to be his private secretary. He told de Valera frankly he did not agree with some of his policies, to which de Valera replied that it did not matter. Maurice Moynihan recalled later that ‘he didn't ask how I voted and never did’ (McMahon, Studies (2000), 71–6). Working as de Valera's private secretary, Moynihan experienced at first hand the unfolding ‘economic war’ and in July 1932 accompanied de Valera to 10 Downing St. for a meeting with the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald. The meeting was a complete failure and Moynihan witnessed its end when de Valera stalked down the hall firmly clutching his hat. Later that summer he married Mae Conley. It was a deeply happy marriage which lasted for sixty-two years.
Moynihan returned to the Department of Finance at the end of 1932 but was recalled to the president's department in the spring of 1936 to work on the drafting of the new constitution. De Valera appointed him chairman of the committee of civil servants that scrutinised the draft constitution. He also chaired the committee that supervised the Irish-language version. Moynihan always paid the highest tribute to the work of the officials involved in the drafting, especially John Hearne (qv) and Philip O'Donoghue (qv), but was emphatic about de Valera's ultimate responsibility for it. Later claims to the contrary provoked rare expressions of irritation such as ‘this is almost entirely at variance with my own recollection’, which he wrote in the margin of one article submitted to him in the 1970s (UCDA, Maurice Moynihan papers, P122/105). In the early 1960s de Valera had asked him to write a history of the constitution, but although he did some preliminary research this was never completed.
In April 1937, at the age of 34, Moynihan was appointed secretary of what soon became the Department of the Taoiseach and served in this post for almost twenty-four years. In 1960, shortly before his retirement, he wrote a short pamphlet in which he described the functions of the department. Its primary and essential work, he wrote, was ‘that of a secretariat, the secretariat of the taoiseach, who is the head of government’. The secretary was thus also secretary to the government and the principal private secretary to the taoiseach. The taoiseach, as he wrote in a revealing sentence, ‘is the captain of the team. In this capacity, he is the central coordinating figure, who takes an interest in the work of all departments, the figure to whom ministers naturally turn for advice and guidance when faced with the problems involving large questions of policy or otherwise special difficulty and whose leadership is essential to the successful working of the government as a collective authority’ (Maurice Moynihan, The functions of the Department of theTaoiseach (1960). Moynihan had no ambitions for empire-building, and the department operated with a tiny staff for all of his tenure as secretary. During the Emergency he did not use a car and cycled to Government Buildings from his home in Clontarf.
He served de Valera for fifteen of his twenty-four years as secretary, and his closeness to de Valera has been recognised by historians. His political antennae were exceptional; he shared de Valera's acute sensitivity to the meaning of words; he was a skilled drafter of official documents, and he was fluent in Irish, the language in which they usually communicated with each other. But his closeness to de Valera did not mean that he was subservient. Beneath his gentle, courteous exterior there was a core of steel and de Valera soon realised this. Moynihan never hesitated to express his opinion to de Valera who once joked that he knew he was out of favour with his secretary when Moynihan started calling him ‘Sir’. Moynihan was devoted to de Valera and admired his statesmanship. He regarded him as an immensely stimulating but demanding chief who was difficult to move on issues once he had made up his mind. He was never uncritical of de Valera but was contemptuous of what he considered to be superficial and facile criticisms of him.
When de Valera left office in 1948 he turned to Moynihan just before he got into the car and said: ‘I hope you will serve them as well as you have served me’ (McMahon, ‘Maurice Moynihan’). But Moynihan received a humiliating rebuff when he was excluded from the meetings of the first inter-party cabinet, an action mainly instigated by Seán MacBride (qv), the Clann na Poblachta minister for external affairs, but concurred in by the rest of the government. The lack of a proper administrative system at the very heart of government contributed in no small measure to the government's travails over the next three years. Moynihan's considerable experience, particularly in church–state affairs, might have helped the inter-party government to avoid the fiascos of the repeal of the external relations act and the mother-and-child scheme. That John A. Costello (qv) was aware of this was evident when he returned to power in 1954. The first thing he said to Moynihan was that ‘this time things will be different’ (ibid.). The two men developed a close working relationship and, like de Valera, Costello respected Moynihan greatly. When he left office in 1957 he wrote to Moynihan: ‘Had it not been for your wise prudent and calm counsel I am afraid I might have made many more mistakes . . . Your utter devotion to duty, your readiness to work the longest hours, the sacrifice of your leisure and, above all, your complete independence and courage in expressing your opinions and offering your advice are beyond praise’ (ibid.).
After de Valera's resignation in 1959 Moynihan stayed on under Seán Lemass (qv). In 1961 he was appointed governor of the Central Bank (of which he had been a service director since 1953), in succession to James McElligott. The most important achievements of his tenure included the issuing of credit advice to the banks (which marked the beginning of monetary policy); the provision of rediscounting facilities; participation in the market for government securities; the development of clearing systems and the widening of the fund backing note issue to include assets other than sterling; and the transfer of the administration of exchange controls to the Bank. He oversaw the mergers of the clearing banks and the centralisation of the foreign currency reserves in the Bank. He was also responsible for promoting economic and monetary research at the Bank. On the question of the extent to which the Bank's submissions were heeded by governments, Moynihan was more optimistic than his successor, T. K. Whitaker, who was sceptical of their influence.
He spent the following decade working on two books: Currency and central banking in Ireland 1922–60, published in 1975 (which the economist James Meenan (qv) described as ‘one of the most amusing books I've read for ages’ (UCDA, Maurice Moynihan papers, P122/92)) and Speeches and statements by Eamon de Valera 1917–73 (1980). The latter was a work of exemplary scholarship which has proved an essential source for de Valera's career. Moynihan retained his interest in politics until the end of his long life. In July 1992 he wrote a scathing letter to the Irish Times (2 July) on the Maastricht treaty, which in his view would see the constitution ‘become an instrument subordinate to decrees of alien authorities’. He was equally scathing about the 1992 supreme court judgment on cabinet confidentiality, which he considered ‘all nonsense’.
He and his wife had five children. In 1994 his wife and eldest daughter Mary died. The year before his death he also lost his son Maurice. When he died on 21 August 1999, he had outlived his siblings. John died in 1964, Hannah in 1992, Tom in 1996, and Denis (Father Anselm, OP) in 1999.