Who is the best/worst Taoiseach in modern times?

Good article Irish times Charles haughey
living with 60 per cent PAYE tax, 15 per cent price inflation, 14 per cent unemployment and mass emigration,
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Charlie’s devils: how Haughey era poisonous culture lives on
‘The RTÉ series is described as “fascinating”. But Charlie Haughey’s corrupt, thuggish little power play will always elicit other adjectives that begin with an emphatic F’

Kathy Sheridan
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Wed, Jan 7, 2015, 12:01
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‘Even 35 years on, Charvet Charlie, his bagman, his stately home, his befurred, entitled mistress, his grovelling Uriah Heep ministers, the phone-tapping, the tails, the threats, all remain too close, too familiar, too infuriating to be classified as fascinating or entertaining, especially at this point in our history, when it is all too clear how the seeds of that poisonous culture would re-erupt like ragwort, again and again, across the decades.’ Above, Aidan Gillen as Charlie Haughey
‘Even 35 years on, Charvet Charlie, his bagman, his stately home, his befurred, entitled mistress, his grovelling Uriah Heep ministers, the phone-tapping, the tails, the threats, all remain too close, too familiar, too infuriating to be classified as fascinating or entertaining, especially at this point in our history, when it is all too clear how the seeds of that poisonous culture would re-erupt like ragwort, again and again, across the decades.’ Above, Aidan Gillen as Charlie Haughey
Forty-eight hours on, the nausea triggered by 90 minutes of Charlie still lingers. It may be a generational thing. Some aged under 45, say, with no memory of the Haughey era, will have been drawn in by the resurrection of Nidge, aka Duracell Mara, in a suit and black-rimmed spectacles. Many over-45s, having perhaps just waved off an emigrant child, or who were dreading the return to post-Christmas reality, might have required more willpower to stay with it.

Charlie is the opposite of Sunday-night escapism. The series covers the decade from 1979, one the continuity announcer described as “fascinating”. That may work to describe a piece of history or drama. But for those of us who were on those enormous marches, living with 60 per cent PAYE tax, 15 per cent price inflation, 14 per cent unemployment and mass emigration, any reminder that we were the groundlings in Charlie’s corrupt, thuggish little power play will always elicit other adjectives that begin with an emphatic F.

Even 35 years on, Charvet Charlie, his bagman, his stately home, his befurred, entitled mistress, his grovelling Uriah Heep ministers, the phone-tapping, the tails, the threats, all remain too close, too familiar, too infuriating to be classified as fascinating or entertaining, especially at this point in our history, when it is all too clear how the seeds of that poisonous culture would re-erupt like ragwort, again and again, across the decades.

It helped to have put in some training for the viewing. A reading of Dessie O’Malley’s memoir did the trick, a book permeated with Charlie’s shade and full of terms such as “sinister” and “malignant force”. “I came from a different sort of period in a sense,” O’Malley said in a recent interview with this newspaper. “The great dividing point is the beginning of December 1979 [when Haughey won the Fianna Fáil leadership] . . . All the rules and conventions that existed prior to that changed overnight.”


Which happens to be the central event in the first episode of Charlie. A quick character wrap is delivered in the charged vignette of Charlie and his mother marching along the corridors of Leinster House towards the Dáil chamber and his destiny as Taoiseach, while snatches of speeches about him are heard from political opponents : Garret FitzGerald (“flawed pedigree”), Labour leader Frank Cluskey (“a total lack of scruples . . . of either personal or business integrity”), Dr Noël Browne (“I think he will do anything to hold power”).

The point is that, in 1979, everyone was on a warning, both inside the Dáil and out. They may not have known the full extent of Charlie’s corruption, but there was no shortage of signals. Hard truths were being delivered, out loud, even then.