View from the Green Room: The rise and fall of Haughey
Charles Haughey
“Eugene is back” is the talk of the room. Dr Eugene Broderick is here to complete his lectures on Irish history in the twentieth century. These lunchtime lectures (1.15-2.00pm) draw huge attendances because they’re topical, informative and entertaining – like “Reeling in the Years” really, for the intelligent!
Sadly, the 20th century talks will conclude with 1995 issues because that’s when the publication of State papers' 30-year ban ends, creating an obvious problem around objectivity.
Eugene confesses that he’s in a mourning kind-a-mind following the closure of Jackie Lennox’s Bandon Road chipper that fed half of UCC and employed the other half. Still he brightens up when he mentions Haughey’s name. Rogue, schemer and charlatan – CJ is just that bit difficult to forget.
A man who was besotted by power, he was Taoiseach three times despite being cast as “unfit for office”. He rode roughshod over his enemies and viewed his cabinet colleagues with the contempt of a traffic warden. He truly believed that he was a man of destiny and saw his fulfillment in the unification of Ireland. He publically rubbished the New Ireland Forum’s report and its findings without any consultation with his fellow members or party.
Still… all those people you make enemies of on the way up are waiting for you on the way down.
He feared Des O’Malley and drove him out of the party because of his views. Charlie, however, never feared what he wished for. O’Malley founded the PDs, won 14 seats in the next election and prevented Haughey from an overall majority, although CJ was elected on the casting vote of the Ceann Comhairle Seán Treacy in 1987.
To Haughey’s credit, he grasped the clutch of nettles that stung the State – unemployment at almost 20%, state borrowing that was eating up one-third of all taxation and out of control public spending. Swinging cuts for three years caused real hardship and misery. When Minister of Health Rory O’Hanlon told Haughey that the health service couldn’t stand any more cuts, he demanded even more. Haughey embraced austerity like a Trappist monk on speed.
Many commentators believed that the three-year period of austerity formed the beginning of the Celtic Tiger.
The Broderick Talks continue each Wednesday at the Museum of Treasures for October.
