THE former president Cearbhall O Dalaigh wanted to offer himself as a hostage in place of Tiede Herrema, the Dutch industrialist kidnapped by the IRA in 1975, his private papers reveal.

O Dalaigh also considered resigning at least twice before a comment by Paddy Donegan, the defence minister, that he was a “thundering disgrace” finally drove him from office. On one occasion he planned to resign in order to campaign against anti-terrorist legislation passed by the government.

The papers, held in University College Dublin, reveal a far different portrait of Ireland’s fifth president than the gentle, cultured judge of public repute. In fact, O Dalaigh was a deeply unhappy man, who had a poor relationship with the government, and drafted seven letters of resignation in his final weeks in office as he, seemingly desperate, sought a way out of Aras an Uachtarain.

The papers include a 1975 draft letter from O Dalaigh to Liam Cosgrave, the then taoiseach, in which the president proposed offering himself as a replacement for Herrema, who was being held hostage in Monasterevin, Co Kildare.

“It seems to me the only way to save Dr H’s life is to offer a substitute hostage who might succeed in persuading the kidnappers to reason,” O Dalaigh wrote. “I believe that I could bring the kidnappers to reason; if I fail I don’t mind dying. It will vindicate Ireland’s honour before the world.”

The bizarre offer from a head of state would have made headlines around the world, as the Herrema kidnapping was already high-profile news.

Ironically, O Dalaigh made a separate complaint of shabby treatment against the government because he had been left without bodyguards on a public train journey during the Herrema crisis.

Cosgrave has said he knew nothing of O Dalaigh’s proposed offer, but it “would have been turned down forthwith by me and the government at the time”. He described the former president as “a very nice little man, a very polite man (but) politically he was very inexperienced, which showed”.

Garret FitzGerald, the then foreign minister, said O Dalaigh was a “very odd man, eccentric; totally unsuited to the presidency”.

Herrema was eventually released unharmed after a lengthy siege. The Irish Press reported the president of the Dutch Society as stating “there was a strong feeling among some Dutchmen that the Irish government should have offered ‘one of their own’ in exchange for Herrema”. O Dalaigh highlighted the quote and kept it in his private papers, as if to say, “I told you so”.

The files also reveal that O Dalaigh was toying with resignation long before Donegan insulted him. The weekend before the “thundering disgrace” remark, he drafted four different resignation statements. In one he wrote of quitting the presidency to be able to campaign to amend the constitution to ensure that “the fundamental personal rights of the citizen are equally and effectively safeguarded against the whims of the legislature and the executive”.

O Dalaigh was particularly unhappy that he had not been told in advance that the government intended to declare a national emergency. In all, between August 30 and October 22, 1976, the president wrote three letters of resignation and four resignation statements. He did finally resign after the Dail voted confidence in Donegan, who had offered his own resignation twice but been turned down by Cosgrave.

The papers also reveal that the president went behind the government’s back and asked two senior counsel for legal advice on whether he could overrule the government and commute death sentences on IRA terrorists convicted of murdering a garda. The barristers’ advice was that he couldn’t act independently in commuting the sentences and had to follow the government’s advice.

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