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JULY/AUGUST 2006
Former Taoiseach Charles Haughey Dies Peacefully at Home After Long Illness
UBLJN - Former Taoiseach Charles Haughey died peacefully in the presence of his family at his home in Abberville House, Kinsealy on June 13. He was aged 80 and had been suffering from prostate cancer and associated complications for a number of years.
He is survived by his widow, Maureen, their four children, Conor, Ciaran, Eimear and Sean, his sister Maureen and his brothers Eoghan and Sean.
As soon as his death was announced, details of the State funeral were also released. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern withdrew from an EU summit scheduled for Brussels, and President Mary McAleese announced that she was interrupting her visit to Africa to attend the funeral.
Haughey was buried, at his request, in St. Pintan's Cemetery in the Sutton area of Dublin. The journey to the graveyard was led by the Defence Forces band, followed by a colour party escorted by members of the Cadet School and an infantry company comprising members of the Naval Service and the second Eastern Brigade.
The former Taoiseach was accorded full military honours, with the Tricolour being folded and handed to his widow and a volley of shots fired over his grave by members of the Naval Service.
The man known simply as "Charlie" throughout his turbulent political career was the country's sixth Taoiseach and the fourth leader of Fianna Fail. He was Taoiseach for three separate terms between 1979 and 1992 and he was widely considered to be the most controversial Irish politician of his generation.
Loved and disliked in almost equal measure, Haughey was never given an overall majority by the Irish electorate. He survived so many leadership challenges that he became known as the Great Houdini. But in 1992, a 10-year-old phone bugging scandal led to his resignation as Taoiseach.
A son-in-law of former Taoiseach Sean Lemass, Haughey first hit the headlines in 1970 when he was dismissed from the cabinet over allegations that he attempted to import arms for the Provisional IRA. He was later cleared of the charge in court.
The man who once described Northern Ireland as "a failed political entity" never hid his dislike of the Irish border. In a television documentary in the 1980s, he said, "It's guarded by units of the British army and I can never come up to this border without experiencing deep feelings of anger and resentment."
Although he was never trusted by Northern Ireland's unionists, he enjoyed initial good relations with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But her handling of the IRA hunger strikes of 1981, in which 10 prisoners in the Maze jail starved themselves to death, soon saw a cooling off in the relationship.
Out of office, Haughey's reputation became greatly tarnished. His longtime mistress Terry Keane revealed details of their affair. Speaking on Irish television, she said, "Charlie was a very important part of my life.
THE MAN known simply as "Charlie" was considered the most controversial Irish politician of his generation. He mysteriously amassed a fortune during his time in office and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle.
He shaped me, he changed me in many ways and we've had a wonderful time together."
Many believed Haughey was the ideal man to deal with the Irish Republic's chronic debt problem. In 1980, he said, "The figures that are just now becoming available to us show one thing very clearly - as a community we are living away beyond our means."
But it wasn't just the state that was living beyond its means in the 1980s. Charles Haughey also enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. He owned a yacht, his own island, race horses and a mansion. It was later revealed that much of this lifestyle was paid for by the patronage of business leaders such as chain store owner Ben Dunne who gave Haughey millions of pounds.
Dunne gave evidence to two tribunals that inquired into his finances and at one stage, he faced possible imprisonment for obstructing one of those investigations. One tribunal heard that money intended for a liver transplant for the late Brian Lenihan, a former government minister, ended up in Charles Haughey's bank account.
However, since his death many of those who knew Charles Haughey have maintained that history will ultimately judge him kindly, that the good that he did will far outweigh his "mistakes."
Haughey was the architect of the free travel scheme for the elderly, an act which has since been appreciated by millions who were far from retirement age when it was introduced in the late 1960s.
On the arts front it was Haughey who introduced tax-free status for income earned through the creation of works of artistic merit, a move which is still seen as enlightened by many. He also set up Aosdana,
the self-governing artists' association, and is credited with establishing the Irish Museum of Modern Art in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
There are those who believe that one of his most important reforms was the introduction of the Succession Act in 1965. This guaranteed that a widow and children were entitled to a minimum portion of her husband's estate. Prior to that it wasn't unknown for a vindictive husband to leave his wife destitute.
When Haughey decided that Government buildings should receive a major facelift, to allow whoever was Taoiseach to greet foreign dignitaries in the type of surroundings they would be used to at home, he had many critics.
At the time the £17 million price tag was considered outrageous but today the many admirers of the building consider the decision visionary. In similar vein he is credited with turning Temple Bar into Dublin's flourishing Left Bank. He intervened when CIE thought it would make a fine bus terminus.
Many believe that Haughey paved the way for the peace process although there are others who dispute that. Similarly there are
some who approve of whatever role he played in the arms crisis of 1970.
They still argue that at the time Northern nationalists had been abandoned by others in the South at a time when the British Government had washed its hands of responsibility for security in the North.
There are others who put forward the hypothesis that it was the willingness of Southern politicians to introduce arms on the nationalist side that made the use of guns and explosives acceptable and led to almost 30 years of violence.
There has been no shortage of commentators willing to accept that the former Taoiseach, despite early fiscal failings, paved the way for the economic success of recent years. He is also acknowledged for seeing merit in Dermot Desmond's proposal to establish Dublin's International Financial Services Centre and making that dream become a reality.
Those were some of the positive features of a turbulent career and not everyone is willing to give Haughey credit for them. There was also, as everyone knows, a down side. Many saw his role in the arms crisis as a major failing.
From the date of that controversy he became a divisive figure within the Fianna Fail party and it was the rivalry between him and Des O'Malley that led to the formation of the Progressive Democrats, and saw Haughey lead the Fianna Fail party into coalition government for the first time ever.
The many party activists who believed that the Fianna Fail philosophy was above the short-term disputes between personalities were to be disappointed later, when it was learned that Haughey had been very generously bankrolled by the business community, that he had been evading tax on the grand scale, and that he had been cheating on his wife for 27 years.
His apologists still argue that he never did anything in return for the millions he received from businessmen. For those who, throughout his career, questioned the source of Haughey's obvious wealth, his reputation had long been tarnished. The revelations of the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals tarnished it for many more.
The Moriarty Tribunal estimated that from 1979 to 1996 Haughey received more than EU8.5 million in donations, an average of EU500,000 a year.
HAUGHEY'S MISTRESS BETRAYS HIS SECRETS
DUBLIN - Charlie Haughey's former mistress is continuing to battle serious illness in hospital.
Former gossip columnist Terry Keane has been described as "gravely ill" and visits to her bedside in St. Vincent's Hospital in Dublin have been greatly restricted. She has been diagnosed with colon cancer and she also has heart problems.
Earlier, many thought it the ultimate in bad taste for the Ireland on Sunday newspaper to carry a previously unpublished interview with Keane.
The interview focused on the 27-year relationship she had with former Taoiseach Charles Haughey who died five days earlier.
The interview took place some three years ago on condition, it was claimed, that it would not be published while Haughey was alive.
Fianna Fail supporters branded the interviews as Keane's final betrayal of the former Taoiseach.
In the week of Haughey's death, the six-page article caused enormous anguish for his family.
According to Ireland on Sunday Keane approved the publication of the interview when approached a few days earlier.
Other newspapers spoke of the hypocrisy of Keane who, in a Late Late Show interview three months ago, spoke of her regret at exposing the relationship when she was interviewed on the same program in 1999.
TERRY KEANE, who was Charlie Haughey's long-time mistress, is shown here in happiertimes with her lover in Dublin.
In the more recent television interview she described it as the thing she regretted most in her life.
In response to this criticism a spokesman for the newspaper also referred to hypocrisy in relation to rival editors, all of whom, he claimed, would have published the interview had it been available to them.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern refused to comment when asked about the Keane disclosures at a government strategy launch.
His close associate, Senator Cyprian Brady, said he had not read the interviews but that it was
"insensitive" to publish them this
week.
"I don't know her reasons," he said. "It's obviously insensitive as the funeral is just over.
"It's not just the Haughey family -her own family will be affected as well," Senator Brady said.
The second and final part of the interview appeared in the sister paper, the Irish Daily Mail.
Meanwhile, the former Taoiseach's widow, Maureen Haughey, has been discharged from hospital after injuring her leg just days after Haughey's funeral.