Dr Patrick Hillery was President of Ireland from 1976 until 1990. Before that he had held several important ministries in Irish governments, including Foreign Affairs, and was the Republic of Ireland's first Commissioner in the European Economic Community after accession in 1973.

Hillery became President after Cearbhall O Dalaigh had resigned following a verbal attack upon him by an inebriated Minister for Defence to which the Government failed to respond either by an apology or by dismissing the minister.

Unlike most former presidents Hillery was elected unopposed and so had not received public endorsement. This may have contributed to his lack of popular appeal. At the end of his two terms - he was re-elected unopposed in 1983 - it was being asked whether the presidency served any useful purpose.

In 1990 Mary Robinson campaigned successfully to succeed him on a platform of an active presidency and a change from the practice of treating it as a retirement post for senior politicians.

Hillery afterwards defended his low profile as President as having been necessary to restore the stability and respect for the office after the buffeting it had received in O Dalaigh's time. In office he took particular care never to make any statements or take initiatives without government approval. There was little entertainment at the official residence, and he was seen less in public even than the aged President de Valera had been. The press lost interest in him and failed to cover even such events as he did attend. He was a hesitant public speaker, and his private charm and warmth did not translate into public charisma; efforts to manufacture which in the early years by devices such as wearing a cape fell rather flat.

His positive attributes were seen to best advantage on state visits abroad where he was generally accompanied by his attractive wife, like himself a medical doctor and the daughter of a successful Irish builder in the North of England.

In public perception Hillery's tenure was irreparably damaged by a rather ludicrous incident in 1979 on the eve of the Pope's visit to Ireland when he felt compelled to hold a press conference to deny rumours, which had not even been published, that his marriage was in difficulties. Hillery, who was quite a suspicious man, believed that the rumours had been started by henchmen of Charles Haughey (obituary, June 14, 2006) who were fearful that Hillery would return to domestic politics and scupper Haughey's chances of succeeding Jack Lynch as leader of Fianna Fáil.

As it turned out, Hillery had a clash with Haughey a few years later when Garret Fitzgerald's first Government was defeated in the Dáil seven months into its term. Haughey, who was now leader of Fianna Fáil, wanted Hillery to send for him to form a government rather than accede to Fitzgerald's request for a general election. Hillery refused to take a telephone call from Haughey and dissolved the Dáil. The incident established Hillery's credentials as a President above party and set a valuable precedent. All parties joined in pressing him to accept a second term in 1983.

Patrick John Hillery was born in 1923 in Miltown Malbay on the west coast of Clare, where his father was a general practitioner. He went to school with the Holy Ghost Fathers at Rockwell in Tipperary before becoming a medical student at University College Dublin. He qualified with honours and then spent a period in Canada. In 1951 he was elected to the Dáil for his native county as a running mate of Éamon de Valera. But he had to wait until de Valera retired as Taoiseach in 1959 to be appointed a minister.

As Minister for Education from 1959 to 1966 he required all his abundant shrewdness and tact when developing comprehensive schools outside the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, which had previously been all-powerful in Irish education. These schools were to provide the skilled labour force that later attracted foreign investment to Ireland.

He then made an equally solid contribution as Minister for Labour with back-up from an outstanding head of department. In 1969 the Taoiseach Jack Lynch moved him to the Department of External Affairs, which Hillery later had renamed Foreign Affairs when he heard that the Australians had done the same thing.

Hillery's arrival at the Department of External Affairs coincided with the beginning of the Northern Ireland troubles. When, in the late summer of 1969, he flew to London to protest against the failure of the police to protect Catholic areas and their treatment of civil rights demonstrators, he got access only to a junior minister and was told shortly that the British Government would not entertain interference in its domestic affairs.

Hillery then went to New York to request a UN peacekeeping force but, faced with American as well as British opposition, he did not press the issue to a vote at the Security Council. The Home Secretary Jim Callaghan (obituary, March 28, 2005), sent in troops to protect the Catholic areas and they were initially well received.

Hillery sided with Lynch in ruling out any armed intervention, however covert, in Northern Ireland and in taking on the IRA. But they still needed to find ways of showing solidarity with beleaguered northern nationalists. Hillery's unannounced visit to the Catholic areas of Belfast immediately after the first army house searches that followed the return of the Conservatives to power in the summer of 1970 was of a piece with this. It did him no harm among nationalists that the British Government waxed indignant over his disregard for diplomatic protocol.

Hillery's early days as Foreign Minister were blighted by an uneasy relationship with his head of department, whom he sought unsuccessfully to replace, and problems with alcohol that led to his becoming a teetotaller at the end of 1970.

Against this background Taoiseach Lynch effectively took over Anglo-Irish relations, working directly with Hillery's officials without reference to their minister. This had the advantage that Hillery could concentrate on the negotiations for Irish entry to the European Economic Community. However, after 13 civilians had been shot dead by the paratroopers in Londonderry in January 1972, Hillery was sent to the US in a vain attempt to obtain support from the American Administration for protests to the Government of Edward Heath (obituary, July 18, 2005).

The Americans were less than impressed when Hillery announced beforehand that Ireland might have to turn to the East if it got no satisfaction in Washington. He came home empty-handed.

When the Republic of Ireland acceded to the European Economic Community in January 1973, Hillery was appointed Irish Commissioner and was given the Social Affairs portfolio. He earned marks as a good European when he dismissed an application from the Irish Government to derogate from the directive he had had enacted requiring equal pay for women in the public sector. He promoted the rights of migrant workers. But he got negative publicity, especially in Britain, arising out of a slow start and his poor relationship with the English economist, Michael Shanks, who was head of the social affairs directorate of the Commission.

Hillery, who could be hasty, did not enhance his image early on when he publicly dismissed an Irish official in his Cabinet who had been his mainstay in the accession negotiations. But he was popular with most of those who worked for him, and his good relationship with fellow commissioners, often furthered on the golf course, facilitated the passage of community legislation within his remit.

Although he was never an especially hard worker, his standing was reasonably high, and it was expected that he would make a career in the European Parliament if the Irish Government did not reappoint him.

When he was approached to stand for the Presidency of Ireland in November 1976, he made it clear that he was doing so out of a sense of duty rather than personal preference. Criticism of his performance as President always tended to be muted by an awareness of this.

Hillery lived quietly after he ceased to be President and continued to indulge his lifelong passion for golf at the Portmarnock and Lahinch clubs. The few public statements he made were on his public life, and he seldom gave much away; he was a highly discreet and rather private man.

He is survived by his wife Maeve and one son, who has followed his parents in the medical profession. A daughter died in 1987.

Dr Patrick Hillery, European Commissioner and President of Ireland, was born on May 2, 1923. He died on April 12, 2008, aged 84