There are many theories which present things in terms of cycles or waves, boom and bust, decline and fall, war and peace. To take advantage of such movements, assuming there is some reality to them, you have to know where you are in terms of downturn or upturn. I sometimes think my life is organised in terms of a peak every four to five years.

Whatever truth there may be in this, 1968 was certainly one of those years in which an enormous number of positive things happened and which, from a distance, makes me wonder how Anne and I managed to cope.

The major event of the year was of course of our own making. After a lot of discussion of all the risks involved, particularly for Anne, and after weighing up as carefully as we could our preparedness to take on the implications of family life, we decided that the autumn of 1967 was the right time to see if we could start a family. We got our answer in the form of an immediate pregnancy and the countdown to the birth of our first child began.

I joined in the pregnancy as best I could. We decided that we wanted to try to be good, well-equipped, progressive parents. The priority must be to get a healthy child into the world without any damage to Anne’s health – accepting that we might not wish or get an opportunity to have more than one child. It was agreed that I should be present at the birth and that I would learn something of Anne’s relaxation exercises so that I might be of some help to her during labour. We followed most of the advice of the expectant grandmothers, in particular not buying in advance of the birth anything for which we would have no use should things go wrong. While we would both prefer the child to have only one Christian name, our feeling was that we might get away with this for a son but that a daughter should be given two Christian names, one for each granny.

Dr. Spock’s famous paperback on baby and child care was taken as gospel and studied from cover to cover. The pregnancy went as well as it could. Whenever Anne tried to practice her breathing exercises, even in her maternity class, she usually fell asleep.

In terms of medical care, Anne and I had taken on Dr. Waugh, who had looked after Florence, John and me since our arrival in Dundela Park. His wisdom and common sense was constantly reassuring. The birth was scheduled for Mount Carmel private hospital in Dartry, the consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician would be Dr. Ian Dalrymple, of Dublin’s famous Rotunda Maternity Hospital. As the scheduled date arrived Anne and I nevertheless became apprehensive. The bag of hospital requisites was packed ready for the off and I did a trial run to the hospital to make sure I knew how to get there fast.

The red Mini had been replaced by a four-door grey Morris Minor, which was much more comfortable as Anne expanded, and would also provide a good back seat for a carry-cot. The off came in the early morning of 27 June and, though scared, we managed a smile as we passed The Dropping Well, the pub which a witty friend had recommended as an ideal place for a drink along the way.

Despite my failure to get elected to Dun Laoghaire Corporation, I was very pleased to find that my interest in and commitment to Fianna Fáil was winning recognition locally and at party headquarters. My most extraordinary success in 1968 was election as the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown constituency delegate to the Party’s national executive. This gave me a place at the big table in General Secretary Tommy Mullins’ Mount Street Office on the second Monday evening of every month where Jack Lynch, who had become Taoiseach, presided and household names like Joe Groome and Charles J. Haughey held the posts of Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer.

Charles Haughey, then Minister for Finance, nominated me to membership of the National Savings Committee and, impressed by my interest in education and my professional post in Trinity, that Committee asked me to Chair its Vocational Schools’ Advisory Committee. I was pleased to find Desmond Montgomery and family and friends supportive of these developments and I did everything I could to look after my new range of responsibilities conscientiously.

At the beginning of the year the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown constituency had decided to support my proposal that an effort should be made to produce from time to time a party newspaper for delivery free to every house in the constituency.

Of course, I ended up as editor, writer, fundraiser and delivery organiser.

The significance of the production of the first issue of the Borough Post in this account is that, as luck would have it, the morning Anne went into labour was also the morning scheduled for the last clearing of proofs so that the paper could go to press around midday. I was up and down the stairs at Mount Carmel trying to be both a reassuring presence for Anne and a voice of authority to the printer from a coin-box telephone at the hospital entrance. In the end the timing was perfect, the presses were cleared to roll at the Rathmines printing works just before Anne was wheeled into the delivery room. I stood at the head of the bed holding Anne’s hand and panting like mad to try to keep her breathing in rhythm as our child was born, a healthy boy of normal size but frighteningly small to us.

He was washed, weighed and examined and taken to the nursery to be put in a transparent plastic cot as I escorted Anne back to her room. It was only then that the full weight of reality seemed to hit us. There was no going back. We were a family of three people. We had a son, Justin.

Anne had decided she did not want to breastfeed, a decision which I endorsed fully and which mobilised neither family nor medical criticism. We had also agreed that Anne should be a full-time mother, leaving her job in the IPA.

From day one, Justin was much admired and looked set to be a handsome and active infant. The most traumatic moment of those early days was when we left the hospital with him in a carrycot, the largest component of a smart new collapsible pram. Watching his every move as we manoeuvred the cot on to the back seat of the Morris Minor we wondered about the farewell message of the nurse who had been primarily responsible for Justin’s care: “Watch that lower lip,” she had told us.

It had only taken days for our son to register as a character with a will of his own.

Over the years since we have come to marvel at how our children’s character traits relate directly to inherited characteristics from parents and other relatives. We all have our distinctive mixtures but family identity is inescapable.

Read more: 1969 – Senate Nomination