Charles Haughey and Vincent Browne kiss and make up

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

My first class on Thursdays is at midday. Last Thursday I was planning to leave home sometime after 11. I was about to turn off the radio when I hear Oliver Callan interviewing retired journalist Vincent Browne about his new book on Charles Haughey. 

I’ve been listening to Browne for a long time. I never got tired of him, and that’s unusual because I eventually find myself getting tired of journalists and priests as they blather on about the same old things all the time. Vincent Browne has been different, at least for me. 

A few minutes into the Callan interview I was stuck to the floor listening. I stayed there for over 20 minutes, realising I had to go to school. I broke all my own cycling rules, jumped up on my bicycles with earbuds in place and listened to the full hour-long chat. 

It was fascinating. If you have not heard it, I recommend listen to it on the RTÉ Radio Player. I have no hesitation in saying that it was one of the best pieces of radio I’ve ever heard on RTÉ.

Of course he couldn’t have had a better subject, non-other than the famous/infamous Charles J Haughey.

I bought the book that same day. It’s some tome, 696 pages, including notes.

After the first 20 pages my immediate reaction was that Vincent is a better talker than writer but now further into the book I’m beginning to change my mind; he’s every bit as good a writer.

I found myself laughing out loud when Vincent tells his readers as indeed, he told Oliver Callan, that Charlie had a bad word to say about everyone. That reminded me of a story I tell about myself; I always warn people that if the officiating priest at my funeral Mass says I never said a bad word about anyone, the lid will rip off the coffin and slam the priest in the face.

Early in the book Browne gives what seems to me an accurate account of how Charlie made his first large sum of money; they were back handers from two wealthy men, looking for favours when he was first elected to the Dáil in 1957. I was eight that year. 

Charlie Haughey was a name I was to hear in my home and among my friends for the greater part of my life. 

So you can understand why I’m captivated by it and the icing on the cake is the fact that it is written by VB.

The world and its mother now know Charlie was corrupt, which means he caused great hardship to some people, but he was also a rogue. So far into the book he reminds me in some ways of Trump; Trump’s followers would die for him and likewise there were silly people who would have given their lives for Charlie. 

When I heard Browne tell Callan that he considered himself at the end of Haughey’s life a friend and that he cried on leaving him on his last visit, I was reminded of what I am forever saying: It’s all a joke until it’s no longer a joke. 

Not yet finished the book but I plan to write more about it in this column.