BrianH
At the Start
An interesting character. I remember once my name being one above his on an alphabetical seating plan for a dinner at the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney, but we never met. There are lots of stories to be told...
Charlie Haughey - RIP
- Thread starter BrianH
- Start date
simmo
Senior Jockey
and I was banking on Mugabe too......... 
trudij
Senior Jockey
WHo was he??? 
R
rumoursabound
Guest
Hey Brian,
were you one of the wealthy that made a donation to his cause?
were you one of the wealthy that made a donation to his cause?
BrianH
At the Start
Which one? The smuggling in of guns from Libya, the abolition of tax on thoroughbred breeding or something else?
R
rumoursabound
Guest
Brian,
were there others?
were there others?
BrianH
At the Start
The Guardian obituary might help you:Originally posted by trudij@Jun 13 2006, 04:22 PM
WHo was he???
Obituary
Charles Haughey
Former taoiseach whose career faltered amid a morass of allegations and revelations about his conduct
Peter Murtagh and Joe Joyce
Tuesday June 13, 2006
Charles Haughey, who has died aged 80, was the most controversial Irish politician of his generation, and left few people in the Irish Republic unmoved.
Several times his political career faltered in a morass of allegations and revelations about his conduct - public and private - but each time he confounded his critics to emerge triumphant.
Only in old age and once more as a private citizen did the truth catch up with him.
The revelation, during a bitter legal row between the scions of a wealthy supermarket family, the Dunnes, that Haughey had received over £1m from one of them finally threw some light on how he had financed his extraordinarily lavish lifestyle.
Two tribunals, set up in the 1990s to probe his private finances, uncovered cash gifts of over £8.5m covering a 17-year period - most of the money coming from a variety of Ireland's best-known and most successful businessmen.
The loot flowed his way within days each time he was elected taoiseach (prime minister).
Haughey denied any impropriety, claiming - to widespread disbelief - that he devolved all responsibility for his personal finances to his financial advisor, Des Traynor, who, conveniently, had already died.
To the end, Haughey ducked and weaved, refusing to co-operate fully with either tribunal.
A criminal prosecution for allegedly frustrating the work of the first inquiry (the McCracken Tribunal) was put on ice when a judge ruled he was incapable of obtaining a fair hearing while the second (the Moriarty Tribunal) was proceeding.
Failing health (he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000) saw him give evidence in private to Judge Moriarty. He died with his reputation irrevocably damaged, but with a loyal group of admirers seeking to emphasise his less controversial contributions to Irish public life.
Charles Haughey's unconcealed ambition to be prime minister was one of the more intriguing sideshows in domestic Irish politics for 20 years or more.
And when, in 1979, he took over the leadership of the Fianna Fail party, the electorate watched an eight-year duel, in and out of office, with his opposite number in the Fine Gael party, Dr Garret FitzGerald.
He was a populist politician - at times demagogic - who desperately wanted people to like him. He mastered the art of the small gesture that cost little but won widespread public approval. In his early career, he abolished income tax for writers and artists and gave pensioners free public travel.
He owned one of the Blasket islands off the Kerry coast and a Georgian mansion on a 280-acre estate in north Dublin, just a few miles from his working class constituency where many of his followers were so fanatically devoted to him.
His charisma and behind-the-scenes political bullying discouraged all but the bravest from questioning how he could afford it all. During his political career, Haughey resolutely refused to explain anything about his wealth.
Born in Castlebar, County Mayo, he was the son of a soldier. While he was a child, his family moved to Dublin's Northside.
Educated at St Joseph's Christian Brothers' school in the Fairview district, he obtained a BCom degree from the city's University College and qualified as an accountant. In 1949, he was also called to the Irish Bar after studying at King's Inns, but did not practise.
However, despite these modest beginnings, when he became a millionaire, he lived like one: dining in the most fashionable restaurants, dressing in expensive clothes and lavishing hospitality on his chosen few.
Unknown to the population at large, his friend Des Traynor was busily dipping into the wallets of willing businessman to bankroll it all.
Haughey was first elected to the Dail in 1957, and through most of the 1960s held ministerial office under his father-in-law, Sean Lemass. He had married Maureen Lemass in 1951, and they had three sons and a daughter.
At the start of his ministerial career, he seemed to epitomise a new breed of Irish politician: tough, talented, pragmatic, and more interested in economic progress for the republic than in its historic claim on Northern Ireland.
But his career was one of the casualties of the violence that erupted there in 1969, while he was finance minister in the republic under Jack Lynch. In 1970, he was sensationally fired and charged with conspiracy to import guns for the IRA.
His sacking and that of a colleague, Neil Blaney, threatened Fianna Fail with its greatest crisis. After a lengthy trial, Haughey and three others were aquitted by a jury. But his dismissal and the so-called "arms trial" poisoned his relations with Lynch and a large section of the party.
The episode came to dominate his career, generating a cloud of suspicion and personal feuds which he was never able to shake off fully.
Haughey spent the next seven years in the political wilderness, but did not abandon his ambition to be prime minister, despite the humiliation he suffered when an early challenge to Lynch collapsed.
He began the slow business of rehabilitating himself within the party by subjugating his personal feelings and joining former cabinet colleagues - one of whom had been the main prosecution witness at his trial - in a vote of confidence in the Dail. (By contrast, Blaney chose expulsion from the party rather than follow his example.)
From 1970 until 1977, Haughey courted the party grass roots by assiduously attending local party functions around the country on the "chicken and ham dinner circuit".
His perseverance paid off when Fianna Fail was returned to power, and Lynch was forced to acknowledge his position by appointing him health minister.
As minister, he legalised birth control with a politically adroit measure - described by him as "an Irish solution to an Irish problem" - which made all contraceptives subject to medical prescription.
Lynch's authority was weakened by two disastrous byelection results and claims that he had agreed to allow British helicopters to fly over the border in pursuit of the Provisional IRA. Amid sniping from the backbenches, Lynch resigned in 1979, and Haughey beat his rival, George Colley, for the leadership.
As prime minister, however, Haughey proved a disappointment, especially to those people, hard-pressed businessmen, who thought he would be decisive and do for the country what he had mysteriously managed to do for himself: make money.
Having achieved his ultimate goal, he seemed paralysed into inactivity, and incapable of exercising the power he had sought for so long. Unemployment grew rapidly, and massive pay increases were awarded in the public sector despite a continuing deterioration of the economy.
He called an election in June 1981 and lost to FitzGerald. But the latter's coalition government collapsed the following February, and Haughey was returned to power with a minority administration.
Even before he assumed office, however, a challenge to his leadership was launched by Desmond O'Malley. It failed, but set the scene for 12 months of bitter and crippling party feuding.
Haughey, dependent for his survival on a leftwing inner-city MP whose support he bought with a secretly concluded multi-million pound deal, lasted just 10 months in office, and lurched from crisis to scandal.
His election agent was charged with voting twice in the general election and acquitted only on a technicality. A double murderer, Malcolm MacArthur, was arrested in the home of the Attorney General, Patrick Connolly, who was forced to resign.
A man about to give evidence in a court case in the republic against a relative of the justice minister, Sean Doherty, was mysteriously arrested by the RUC and held until the case was over and the relative acquitted. Doherty denied any involvement, but it emerged that his office had initiated a request which resulted in the man's arrest.
As the economy drifted from bad to worse, there were persistent allegations that the police were being turned into a tool of the government, often against Haughey's political opponents.
These allegations culminated in the disclosure that Doherty had used the police to tap the telephones of two journalists whose reports critical of the government had angered Haughey.
Shortly afterwards, the government collapsed and, in December 1982, FitzGerald again became prime minister. He instituted an immediate inquiry into the tapping allegations, which discovered that Haughey's finance minister, Mr Ray MacSharry, had used Doherty to obtain bugging equipment from the police to record secretly a conversation with a former cabinet colleague and Haughey critic. The government published the results of the investigation and Fianna Fail was thrown into turmoil.
Once again, however, Haughey routed his opponents with a combination of wooing their support and intimidating them into submission.
He denied any knowledge of the tapping and bugging, and insisted that no one else was capable of leading the party. Some of those who remained opposed, like O'Malley, eventually formed their own party, the Progressive Democrats. Others resolved to keep their heads down in the hope of outliving their leader. As leader of the opposition, Haughey opposed everything FitzGerald did. All moves to liberalise the republic's social laws were denounced.
He described the Anglo-Irish agreement, concluded by FitzGerald and Mrs Thatcher in November 1985, as the greatest ever sell-out of Irish nationalist aspirations.
But returned to power in 1987, Haughey resolved to work the accord with London and, for the first time, he seemed to have the resolve to face down the various interest groups jostling to knock his tough economic policy off course.
He never achieved an overall parliamentary majority, however, and remained to the end of his career deeply distrusted by those who disliked him. But he was equally admired by his followers and, even among his opponents, there were those who harboured a sneaking admiration for his capacity for survival and his refusal to throw in the towel when there appeared to be no chance left of carrying on.
In death as in life, he will remain a figure of controversy. Devotees will extoll his achievements while ageing critics will continue to damn him. The public at large, however, has made up its own mind: Haughey stands reviled and condemned, as popular sentiment grows increasingly indifferent. Judgement has been passed; Ireland and its young population has moved on.
He leaves a wife Maureen, daughter Eimear and three sons, Conor, Ciaran and Fianna Fail TD Sean.
· Charles James Haughey, politician, born September 16, 1925; died Tuesday June 13 2006.
Before the arms crisis he was pushing to have the Irish Army invade the North. I only found that out today when I looked him up on Wikipedia.
Not a bad profile on him there Trudij but hard to get his charisma, neck and utter sliminess across on something like that.
Not a bad profile on him there Trudij but hard to get his charisma, neck and utter sliminess across on something like that.
Colin Phillips
At the Start
Just a regular politician then.
Relkeel
At the Start
Why doesn't his obituary mention all the Carry On films he was in?
A
Ardross
Guest
Such as :
Carry On Corruption
Carry On Giving Me the Cash
and
Carry on the Arms Smuggling
Carry On Corruption
Carry On Giving Me the Cash
and
Carry on the Arms Smuggling
I feel it my duty to point out to those interested in the law and due process that he was found not guilty on the Arms importation charge. There was a very expensive Tribunal establish to investigate corruption allegations. It wound up without any conclusion he had acted corruptly, although it found he had taken gifts from friends. He did of course have a taxation issue to face owing to the apparent absence of any declaration on the gifts, but his legal team established, eight years ago, that he was close to death and unfit to stand trial. He therefore died not guilty. He also, as far as I recall, never signed a book of condolences for a dead dictator.
Having said all that, when they bury him the will need a corkscrew to dig the grave, and they are currently administering a wooden stake to his heart just to be sure to be sure.
Having said all that, when they bury him the will need a corkscrew to dig the grave, and they are currently administering a wooden stake to his heart just to be sure to be sure.
Three positives from his time in politics
1)Helping to turn Irish bloodstock from a cottage industry into what it is today.
2)Free public transport and television licences for old aged pensioners.
3The Financial Services Centre.
1)Helping to turn Irish bloodstock from a cottage industry into what it is today.
2)Free public transport and television licences for old aged pensioners.
3The Financial Services Centre.