The Good, the Bad and TV Psychobabble
The first two programmes: Director Niamh Sammon televisually brilliant, great archive footage, journalistically second rate, blather, misinformation, missed opportunity. RTÉ is to blame for failing to commit adequate resources to the most important recent historical project it has yet undertaken, by Vincent Browne
Script
At first the thunderbolts of banality: "this is the story of ambition", "his life defined our times", "famously the man from God knows where". "This is where the story really begins, Swartagh, Co Derry". And more and more of same throughout the first two programmes. Nobody credited with the script, nobody credited with research, nor with reportage. Was this not an opportunity to find out something new on a career about which so many are so familiar? A rehash, perhaps interesting to those whose times were not "defined" by his life. But wouldn't it have been worthwhile to discover more about what he did as Minister for Justice, Agriculture and Finance? How he became so wealthy, so quickly – reliable information? But this series appears not to have bothered with reporting.
Psychobabble
Declan Kiberd, the estimable UCD literary critic and academic, presented as a psychologist, qualified to determine the motivations of Charles Haughey; the insecurities; how he was an outsider even at secondary school; why he needed to accumulate wealth,; how while indulging in "intermittent" kindness to the poor and vulnerable, he really believed in the lavish rewards going to himself and his rich friends. Rubbish.
Blatherers
Wheeling out Charlie McCreevy to talk about the 1966 Fianna Fáil leadership election, which occurred 11 years before McCreevy came into the Dáil, having him talk about the arms trial of 1970, about which he knows nothing more than any pub blatherer, Des Hanafin talking about that leadership election and also about the arms trial. Could they get no one who had direct knowledge? Could they not establish facts themselves through their own research? Wouldn't a trawl through the National Archives on the arms trial have been interesting? Why rely on third, fourth, fifth hand sources, when a little investigation could have unearthed fresh reliable material? McCreevy made some good points about the snobbery there was about Haughey but as a source on events in which he had no participation?
Background
Vaguely interesting stuff about his parents, which anybody who had paid even vague attention to this career would have known. Missed an interesting point: an uncle remained on in the IRA for long after Independence and was interned in the North decades later.
Then about the father joining the Free State Army because of his allegiance to Michael Collins, again well known to the tens of thousands who know something about Charles Haughey. But no mention the father resigned from the army in 1928 – it might have been interesting to find out why. No mention either that the family moved from Mayo after the father, Sean Haughey, resigned from the army, and settled on a 100 acre farm in Co Meath, the Riggins, Dunshaughlin. It was from here Charlie has his first memories and where he first went to school at Cushenstown. This was before they were forced to move to Belton Park Rd in Donneycarney, when Sean Haughey became invalided.
Sports career
The happiest period of Charlie Haughey's life was when he was playing football for Scoil Mhuire in Griffith Avenue, and then at St Joseph's, CBS, Fairview. So a little further concentration on his involvement in sports might have been illuminating. He continued to play football up to his university career, at that stage for Parnells and was quite accomplished. He was suspended for a year for hitting a linesman. (cue "Dr" Kiberd.)
Career choice
On the first day Charlie Haughey went to UCD he had no idea for what course he would enroll. Previously he had thought of becoming a priest (oh "Dr" Kiberd, what a missed opportunity), he thought he might join the army. Perhaps do engineering. The decision (and his career?) was decided by a chance meeting. He met his school classmate, Harry Boland in the main hall at Earlsfort Terrace. Boland told him he was going to do commerce and was "articled" as an apprentice accountant to his brother, Enda's accountancy firm. Charlie asked if there would be room for him too in the accountancy firm. They went into the porter's office at UCD, phoned Enda Boland and there it was agreed Charlie too would do commerce and start an accountancy apprenticeship. Had that chance meeting not have occurred, almost certainly he would have chosen another career, never met Maureen Lemass (not then anyway), probably never have gone into politics, for up to then he was not close to Harry Boland, son of cabinet minister, Gerry Boland, nor to George Colley, son of 1916 participant and then Fianna Fáil TD, Harry Colley. Maureen Lemass was in the same commerce class at UCD. But all this was missed by the programme and all available from newspaper archives if anybody bothered to check.
The VE Day "riot"
The story of Charlie "leading" a band of rabid UCD republicans down to Trinity on VE Day, to scale onto the roof and burn the Union Jack, in retaliation for Trinity students burning the Tricolour is pure hogwash. What happened was this. Trinity students flew four flags from the flag mast on the top of the front building – the Union Jack, the American flag, the French flag and the Tricolour, with the Tricolour at the bottom. This was considered an insult to the Irish flag. Students from UCD went down to Trinity, these included Charlie Haughey. One of these found a Union Jack and this was burnt on a lamp post opposite Trinity. In retaliation Trinity students burnt a Tricloour and there was a bit of trouble. Kevin Burke, who was an interviewee on the programme, knew all this and could have told the true story. Instead his contribution was edited in a way to give substance to the outlandish version. Sexed-up, dumbed down.
Accountancy career
This was presented as his "networking" chance among the big fish. The truth was more prosaic. He and Harry Boland joined Enda Boland's firm in Dawson St, then prematurely decided to split off and set up their own firm in Dame Street. They struggled for years. Both continued to live with their families. They cycled into the office, Charlie usually arriving very late. They had no money. Charlie bought his first car without having an idea how he would meet the hire purchase payments ("Dr" Kiberd, what do you make of that?). Their first big client was a small factory in Ballinasloe and that came after a few years. Some networking! They did get some work through Harry Boland's political associations.
Start in politics
He joined Fianna Fáil not because of any calculated long-term strategy but because his now business associate, Harry Boland, urged him to. He joined the branch in Dublin north east, of which Boland was a member. Shortly afterwards he was appointed cumann secretary on the nomination of Boland and another school acquaintance, George Colley. For some years thereafter, Haughey and Colley were quite close. The first programme in the series stated categorically "Haughey was not content to lick envelopes and out up posters". This is precisely what he did in the course of the 1948 general election. And not alone did he put up posters but... he, George Colley, Harry Boland and others, got up to capers, daubing a Clann na Poblachta wall-slogan on a bomb site in Fairview.
First elections
The programme correctly recorded how miserably he fared in his early election outings and, via the venerable UCD Professor of Politics, Tom Garvin, expressed amazement that having done so pathetically in the 1951 and 1954 general elections, he fared spectacularly in 1957, being elected at the expense of Harry Colley, George's father. The impression left was there had to be some skullduggery to explain this turn-around. Tom Garvin is an excellent historian and political scientist but his expertise is not in relatively recent politics. The relevant fact is this: In 1956, the legendary Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alfie Byrne, who was an Independent TD for Dublin North East, died. Charlie Haughey got the Fianna Fáil nomination for the by-election and although he was not then elected, he was set up to take a seat in the following general election – by-election candidates typically do well in the following general election. And this is the mundane explanation for his initial electoral success.
Relations with George Colley
The programme reported hostility between him and George Colley dates back to that 1957 general election when Charlie took the seat in Dublin North East from Colley's father, Harry. This is quite wrong. Actually Harry Colley almost took a third seat for Fianna Fáil, almost defeating the Fine Gael candidate, Jack Belton. Ironically, it was the transfer of Sinn Féin votes to the Fine Gael man that defeated the veteran of the 1916 Rising. George Colley was very pleased for Charlie Haughey and for Fianna Fáil believing that Charlie's success encouraged other young people to stand for the party. In fact Charlie Haughey and George Colley were quite close at this time. Haughey was a regular visitor to the Colley family home and he became close to Colley's mother. From the Colley household, they produced a local Fianna Fáil newspaper. At the time George Colley had no political ambitions and moved across the city to Stillorgan, away from the constituency, after he got married. The Haughey and Colley couples occasionally socialised together at this time. The problems arose only later when George Colley changed his mind about going into politics and came back to Dublin North East to stand for Fianna Fáil with Charlie Haughey. As is commonplace between TDs from the same party in a constituency, rivalry commenced, leading soon after to hostility. Pity all this was missed or rather misrepresented.
Lemass
He did not meet Sean Lemass until Maureen Lemass's 21st birthday party in the Country Shop cafe on Stephen's Green (where Huguenot House now stands) and by then he had been dating Maureen Lemass for a few years – they got married in 1951. When Sean Lemass was out of office from 1948 to 1951 he was around the family home in Palmerstown Rd more often than previously, although he was managing director of The Irish Press during this period. Charlie got to know him then and later the senior Lemasses and the young Haugheys would go on holiday in Ireland together. Lemass appointed Haughey Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice, Oscar Traynor, in 1960 (junior ministers were then called Parliamentary Secretaries) but before offering the post to Haughey he offered it to Sean Flanagan of Mayo, later Minister for Health (this is according to the famed Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter Berry). Lemass expected Haughey to decline the offer because of his now expanding accountancy practice but Haughey jumped at the opportunity. In fact Lemass advised him against. He said: "As Taoiseach, I advise you to accept the parliamentary secretaryship but as your father-in-law I advise you not to". He was then and remained very close to Sean Lemass. ("Dr" Kiberd might have offered the view that Lemass was Haughey's real "father figure"). This relationship was not explored at all in the programme but, seems to me, to have been a determining factor in his life. He still talks with great affection and admiration for Lemass.
Ministerial brilliance
By far his most successful period in government was in the Department of Justice, first as Parliamentary Secretary from 1960, and then as cabinet minister, from 1961 to 1964. James Downey's pallid: "He had very good ideas, up to date ideas, reforming ideas". Pathetic. Even Peter Berry, who gave evidence against him in the arms trial, wrote in his memoirs: "He was a joy to work with and the longer he stayed the better he got". His major achievement in Justice was in law reform. There is a whole catalogue of legislative innovations of a kind never replicated in the Department, including The Solicitors Amendment Act 1960, The Charities Act 1961, several Acts reforming the courts, The Defamation Act 1961, the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, The Criminal Justice Legal Aid Act 1962, and particularly, the Civil Liability Act 1961. There was also the Succession act, steered through the Dáil by his successor in Justice, Brian Lenihan. The programme missed out on this, relying on Des Hanafin, to talk about the Succession Act. Tom Garvin got in here again to credit Haughey with the defeat of the IRA in 1961, in fact the IRA was already on its last legs by the time Haughey became Minister.
Grangemore
The programme opened with a clip from Patrick Gallagher claiming he said to Haughey when the later was first elected Taoiseach words to the effect: "Fucking tell me, what the fuck do you owe". Gallagher was 29 at the time. It isn't remotely believable he said this to Haughey. He would have been awestruck. It discredited him as witness from there onwards. Patrick Gallagher is a nice fellow and has come through a difficult period of his life, which included a stint in jail in Northern Ireland for fraud. But he ain't a reliable witness and the stuff he told about Grangemore is not believable.
Grangemore was the first mansion purchased by Haughey. This was in 1961. Gallagher's and the programme's claim was that Gallagher's father, Mat Gallagher, did a deal with Haughey in 1961 whereby Haughey bought Grangemore for a song with the promise that Gallagher would buy it back for a fortune some years later. Balderdash. Matt Gallagher might have introduced Haughey to the property but there was no deal. Haughey took a punt, way beyond his means at the time and it worked. What is interesting is how did the land get planning permission in the late 1960's? That's what boosted its value. The programme did not bother to delve into that. But a deal with Matt Gallagher in 1961 to buy it back in 1969 for a multiple of the original piece? Nonsense.
The 1966 Fianna Fáil leadership election
Always represented as an instance of Haughey's dangerous ambition. Only nine years in the Dáil and only five years as a cabinet minister, what effrontery to promote himself as the new leader and Taoiseach!. Perhaps. But what about George Colley's effrontery? He was just five years in the Dáil and a Minister for just one year. What about that effrontery? The familiar stuff on apprehensions over Haughey's character recycled, without examination. Haughey backed off immediately on being asked to do so by Sean Lemass, even though the figures suggested he would win a straight contest with Colley. Colley refused to back off and forced a leadership election against Jack Lynch. The programme stated: "Haughey was rewarded for putting his leadership ambitions on hold by being appointed Minister for Finance". On hold? What is the evidence for that? He was fully and unequivocally supportive of Jack Lynch's leadership until the arms crisis of 1970. And as for being "rewarded" by being appointed Minister for Finance, who else was there to appoint? George Colley? Kevin Boland? Neal Blaney? Donough O Malley? Sean Flanagan? Brian Lenihan? Patrick Hillery? Haughey was longer in ministerial office than any of them, bar Patrick Hillery, Neal Blaney and Kevin Boland and he was, by far, the ablest of all of them. So what reward?
Next week: Relations with Jack Lynch, the arms trial of 1970, Haughey's rehabilitation, his election as Taoiseach, and his first government.ection as Taoiseach, and his first government