Brief Biography:

Charles Haughey was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, but educated at St Joseph's Christian Brothers' School, Dublin, and University College Dublin, from where he graduated with a Commerce degree, before going onto work as an accountant. Both his parents were originally from Swatragh, County Derry, but his father, Sean, was to be involved in the War of Independence 1919-21 and then went on to serve in the Irish Army. But ill-health later however forced him to retire and to live with his family on his army pension in north Dublin. Charles first became involved in politics in 1948 when he became a member of Fianna Fáil (FF) and after several unsuccessful attempts to enter the Dáil, he was finally elected in 1957 as a FF TD for Dublin North-East (1957-92). In 1961 he was appointed to the cabinet for the first time by the then Taoiseach and also his father-in-law, Sean Lemass, as Minister of Justice (1961-64).

Haughey was soon to gain the reputation as a competent figure pushing through legal reforms as well as taking steps to deal with the ongoing 'border campaign' of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). This was a view that was to be maintained during an uneasy spell as Minister of Agriculture (1964-66) and thus led to speculation that he was about to succeed Lemass as Leader of FF in 1966. But he was later to withdraw from the contest and gave his backing to the eventual winner, Jack Lynch, who appointed him Minister of Finance (1966-70). It was in this position that his first direct involvement in the affairs of Northern Ireland came about when in 1970 he found himself at the centre of serious political allegations. This led to him being removed from the cabinet and, along with a number of other people, charged with conspiring to import arms and ammunition illegally. It was claimed that these were then to be sent to Northern nationalists, who had been calling for assistance from the Dublin government, in order to defend themselves from what they regarded was a sustained attack on their community from loyalist militants and the security forces. After a trial Haughey and his co-accused were acquitted of all charges and for the next number of years he slowly rebuilt a political base in FF. The success of this enterprise came in 1977 when Lynch appointed him Minister of Health (1977-79) and then in 1979 he emerged to become new Leader of FF (1979=92) and to assume the position of Taoiseach (1979-81).

Over the next decade or so he took a keen interest in matters relating to Northern Ireland and was always anxious to stress his and FF's preference for a solution based on the principal of ending partition and to secure reunification, by peaceful means. Not surprisingly this attitude and his past involvement gained him few friends amongst the unionist community in Northern Ireland. But he sought to counteract their deep seated hostility to him by seeking to make political progress by means of improving relations with the British government and then using this as a basis to come to some kind of overall settlement. This culminated in December 1980 when it was announced that London and Dublin would move to set up a mechanism to allow for a number of joint studies to be carried out in order to try to achieve agreed positions on a number of areas. Amongst the topics to be included were matters such as security, economic cooperation, and new governmental structures for Northern Ireland. Although serious disagreements were soon to emerge on many issues and which only soured this effort to secure a better relationship between the two governments, in many ways foundations were to be laid in this period that were to be built upon in the years ahead.

Having served as Taoiseach from 1979 to 1981 and for a nine months in 1982, Haughey was then to be in opposition for five years as Garret Fitzgerald led a Fine Gael (FG) - Labour coalition government. During this period one of the areas which brought out the sharp differences between the two party leaders came over Northern Ireland. For Haughey the publication of the report of the New Ireland Forum (NIF) in 1984 was the opportunity to re-state his preference for a unitary state and in doing so he argued the other recommended options, federation or joint authority, were unworkable. These views were repeated following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) in 1985 and he attacked in particular those aspects of the AIA which guaranteed Northern Ireland's constitutional position. Although initially hostile to it, once he had returned to office in March 1987 he rejected earlier suggestions that he would seek to renegotiate the AIA. Instead he sought to maximise its potential in order to look after not only the interests of northern nationalists but to push forward the objective of reunification. This led to accusations that his government were unwilling to see the suspension of the AIA to allow for unionists to participate in inter-party talks on the future of Northern Ireland.
In February 1992 his term as Leader of FF and Taoiseach was ended when he was forced to resign after allegations of misconduct were laid against him and a few months later he announced his intention to retire from active politics by not standing as a candidate at the general election of November 1992. Since then controversy has continued to surround Haughey following revelations about his financial affairs and the means by which he had managed to sustain a lavish lifestyle through his long political career.

Book References:

Arnold, Bruce. (1994), Haughey: His Life and Unlucky Deeds. London: Harper Collins.
Collins, Stephen. (1992), The Haughey File: The Unprecedented Career and Last Years of the Boss. Dublin: The O'Brien Press.
Collins, Stephen. (2000), The Power Game: Fianna Fáil Since Lemass. Dublin: O'Brien.
Elliott, Sydney. and Flackes, W.D. (1999), Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968-1999. Belfast: Blackstaff Press.
McRedmond, Louis. (ed.) (1998), Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th-century Biography. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.
O'Brien, Justin. (2000), The Arms Trial. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.

Web Sources:

http://www.rte.ie/culture/millennia/people/haugheycj.html

[Entry written by B.Lynn - 19 November 2002]