Politics and Later Career
In March 1924, midway through the Army Mutiny, Minister Joseph McGrath resigned and President Cosgrave took sick leave. O'Higgins, de facto head of government, reversed Cosgrave's appeasement and confronted the IRAO mutineers and confounded their objectives.
In June the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924 changed his title from Minister for Home Affairs to Minister for Justice.
As Minister for External Affairs he successfully increased Ireland's autonomy within the Commonwealth of Nations. O'Higgins was seen very much as the "strong man" of the Cabinet. He once described himself as one of "the most conservative-minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution". Though far-left political enemies characterised him as having supposed "fascist" tendencies, O'Higgins was to the fore in resisting the small wing of Cumann na nGaedheal who looked to Italy for inspiration. He did not approve of left-wing feminism, for instance when asked by Labour Party leader Thomas Johnson in the Dáil whether he believed giving women the vote had been a success, O'Higgins replied, "I would not like to pronounce an opinion on it in public." He famously derided the socialist influenced Democratic Programme of the First Dáil as "mostly poetry". Before his death, he toyed with Arthur Griffith's idea of a dual monarchy in order to end the Partition of Ireland.
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