Reviewed by: Haughey by Gary Murphy Stephen Collins (bio) Gary Murphy, Haughey (Dublin: Gill Books, 2021), 716 pages. During his lifetime Charles Haughey captured the public imagination like no other politician, inspiring fanatical loyalty from some and deep suspicion from others. He was charismatic, divisive, intimidating and hugely able; prone to dreadful decision on some occasions and inspired choices on others. It was the contradictions in Haughey’s character that made him so endlessly fascinating. The boy who grew up in a local authority estate turning himself into the lord of the manor at Kinsealy and aping the habits of the gentry; the innovative Minister in the 1960s who was fired in the dead of night for the alleged conspiracy to import arms in 1970; his long march to the Fianna Fail leadership in 1979, followed by a succession of bitter heaves as his internal foes sought to remove him from office. It was an endlessly fascinating story, and the media lapped it up. During his lifetime, newspaper editors knew that putting a large photograph of Charlie on the front page would sell papers. The public appetite for information about Haughey is still strong, given the way Gary Murphy’s lengthy biography became a best seller last Christmas. The author, who is professor of politics at DCU, had access to Haughey’s papers, and he has gleaned a lot of new material from the archive for his biography. [End Page 200] The strength of the book is the comprehensive treatment of Haughey’s political life from his first unsuccessful by election outing in 1951 to the tribunals which marred his reputation in the 1990s. Access to the archive has enabled the author to provide a detailed account reflecting Haughey’s own view of most of the big events that shaped his career. The exception is the arms crisis, about which neither Haughey, nor Jack Lynch, the man who sacked him, were ever prepared to talk. Maybe because of the reliance on Haughey’s papers, the author gives his subject the benefit of the doubt on almost all the controversies that dogged his career. While this approach does provide a helpful insight into how Haughey regarded the world, the cumulative impact is a feeling that he is being let off the hook too easily. There is no doubt that Haughey deserves to be given credit for a number of important achievements. He was a reforming Minister for Justice in the 1960s who advanced women’s rights through the Family Home Protection Act. He was a conventional Minister for Finance, but his tenure in Merrion Street will be remembered for the introduction of free travel for pensioners. As Taoiseach between 1987 and 1992 he presided over the tough decisions that were required to drag the country out of its decade-long recession and pave the way for the prosperity of modern Ireland. A decision which helped that process was his support for the creation of the financial services centre in Dublin’s docklands. On the negative side, during his first term as Taoiseach between 1979 and 1981 he chickened out of the decisions he knew were needed to turn the economy around, and in opposition thereafter he did everything possible to stop his great rival, Garret FitzGerald, from implementing the necessary policies to get the country’s public finances under control. He did the same in the run-up to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 when he attempted what amounted to national sabotage by trying to undermine the process at home and abroad. On divorce he showed a deep level of cynicism by opposing constitutional change, given his own colourful personal life. To be fair, Murphy does not try and sweep these and other failures under the carpet, but in most cases he makes too many excuses for Haughey’s behaviour and gives no credit to FitzGerald for his genuine commitment to reform. A more serious criticism is that the book doesn’t really capture Haughey’s personality or the sense of danger and excitement that marked the various phases of his political career. Early on Murphy puts his finger on a key [End Page 201] element of Haughey’s personality...
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Jun 17, 2022
Niamh Kitching + 3
Open Access
