Taaffe, Eduard (1833–1895)

Austrian politician. Descended from an Irish family settled in Austria since the 17th century, he was a close friend of Emperor Francis Joseph and held various governmental posts. From 1879 he was prime minister in a multinational Cabinet that attempted, by generally conservative policies tempered with timely concessions, to keep a balance between the country's conflicting national and social groups. Though often criticized as merely ‘muddling along’, his regime lasted for 14 years, the longest and most settled in Austrian history; eventually it disintegrated over the Czech-German antagonism in Bohemia and Taaffe was abruptly dismissed.