Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy Read Free Page A

pleasing people is the very essence of representative democracy, as far as Charlie was concerned.
    He was prepared to help people and be generous even when there was no political advantage to be gained. This side of him has not been generally recognised, except by those who know him. It helps to explain his enormous popularity, especially in his own constituency.
    As a minister he adopted the same facilitory attitude towards deputies looking for his assistance. He was always available to backbenchers and he made a particular point of making them feel welcome. This applied not only to those members of Fianna Fáil who might one day help him to realise his ambition for power, but also to those on opposition benches.
    During his early years in politics Charlie somehow assembled a personal fortune. He has persistently refused to explain how, or to talk about his private business affairs, but he has flaunted his wealth. He moved into a palatial mansion on a 240 acre estate in the outskirts of Dublin. It had served as a summer residence for the British viceroy in the late eighteenth century. Charlie also bought an island on which he built an expensive holiday home off the south-west coast. He has owned yachts, and has gone in for breeding and racing horses – the so-called sport of kings. He also set up one of his sons in a helicopter business.
    â€˜Coming to terms with Charlie Haughey is like making your confirmation or losing your virginity,’ according to Anne Harris of the Sunday Independent. ‘He has a way with women. Young women and matrons alike ache for him.’
    He exuded a mesmerising charm with his uncanny ability to make even a woman he just met in a crowded room feel that he thought that she was the most interesting person in the place. He flattered many women by flirting with them.
    Conor Cruise O’Brien, one of his most trenchant critics, wrote that people have liked Charlie ‘for lending some colour to life in a particularly drab period’. He had become an inspiration for Irish people wishing to fantasise about money, power and the good life.
    Those that Charlie liked got sworn at ribaldly with no expletives deleted. He demanded an unwavering personal loyalty from his friends and tended to regard any questioning of his motives or actions as a betrayal. Although he got on great with photographers, his relations with reporters were frequently strained.
    â€˜I could instance a load of fuckers whose throats I’d cut and push over the nearest cliff,’ he told one interviewer. In particular he singled out the pontificating breed of knowall political commentators. ‘They’ll say something today and they’re totally wrong about it – completely wrong – and they’re shown to be wrong about it. Then the next day they’re back pontificating the same as ever,’ he said. ‘I suppose if anything annoys me, that annoys me.’
    He was often the victim of unfair media criticism, with the result that his relations with reporters were difficult. When an Irish Times reporter approached him in the street one day, Charlie took the offensive. ‘Who writes the Irish Times’ editorials, anyway?’ he asked. ‘They read like they have been done by an old woman sitting in a bath with the water getting cold around her fanny!’ With that he walked off.
    Charlie was a man with real charisma , which should not be confused with charm or popularity. The charismatic leader, in the true sense, is one whose followers believe him to have superhuman powers. In his case, these have been demonstrated in his extraordinary ability to survive politically.
    For over forty years he was involved in a whole series of controversies. Some of the scandals have been of Watergate proportions. Although written off many times, both by his political opponents and the media, he has managed to extricate himself each time. After one escape in which the media was virtually