THEY met at an Ard Fheis in the Mansion House in Dublin in the mid-1960s. Charles J. Haughey, the up-andcoming young minister in his mohair suit, and Padraig Flynn, the young Fianna Fáil delegate from Haughey’s birth town of Castlebar. Sean Lemass was Taoiseach, Muhammad Ali was world champion and The Beatles were dominating the pop charts. Different times, different attitudes, different aspirations.

Ireland, a small, recently-independent nation, was still blinking as it emerged into the sunlight of the 1960s, leaving behind de Valera’s dark era of isolationist politics. Charles J. Haughey was one of its bright-est political hopes, a talented and reforming minister who had already made his mark in the key government departments of Justice and Agriculture. Young men like Padraig Flynn were already flocking to his side.

“He was a decision maker and he did not waste time, there’s no question about that,” recalls Flynn. “The Succession Act, for instance, was an extraordinary piece of legislation. It safeguarded the rights of widows and children who would otherwise be left penniless. That was pretty heavy stuff for the times that were in it. Remember, this was 1964.”

It was the tradition at Fianna Fáil Ard Fheiseanna in the 1960s that the Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, greeted each of the visiting delegates at the door of the Mansion House and introduced them to every member of the Cabinet who would be lined up beside him.

“Different times,” murmurs Padraig Flynn, with a nostalgic smile. “Different times, indeed.”

The Mayo man had been an admirer of the young Castle-bar-born minister long before that first meeting in the Mansion House and his admiration only grew as Haughey’s political career evolved in the late 1960s.

“Even in the 1960s he had an economic vision for the country. I remember when he was Minister for Finance in 1967 he was talking about a Programme for Economic Expansion. He believed in the superiority of free enterprise as the engine for wealth and creation, which would fund a caring administration. He was emphasising that economic development and social justice must go hand in hand long before he ever became Taoiseach.

“That was one of the things that attracted people like me to him. All you had to do was to look at the various ministries he held to see that he was an innovator and a motivator.”

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PADRAIG Flynn was one of several young politicians that Charles J Haughey groomed during his famous years in the wilderness in the mid-1970s. The ‘rubber chicken’ tour was to bear fruit in 1977 when Flynn and a number of other Haugheyites were elected to Dáil Eireann in a Fianna Fáil landslide. The wheels were now in motion for a heave against Jack Lynch. But it would be a bloody revolution.

“The vote [between Haughey and his rival, George Colley] was 44 to 38 - and that says an awful lot,” recalls Padraig Flynn. “It was very tight and that made for its own problems as far as the leadership was concerned. Consensus could not be achieved.”

The upheaval in the Fianna Fáil party spilled into the Dáil Chamber, prompting three general elections during a tumultuous eighteen-month period.

“They were difficult times but they were exciting times,” says Padraig Flynn. “I would say it was one of the most exciting times in parliamentary politics in the last fifty or sixty years. There were so many elections over such a short period it had to be exciting.”

But the nett result of all the political turmoil was another period in the wilderness for Charles J Haughey. A Fine Gael-Labour coalition assumed power in late 1982 and it was to remain in government until early 1987 when the then Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald was forced to go to the polls. Haughey and Fianna Fáil were returned to power, albeit with a minority Government and a severely ailing economy. Not the sort of ingredients for the political immortality that Charles J Haughey was clearly seeking.

“It wasn’t an easy time to become Taoiseach,” says Padraig Flynn. “In fact, it was one of the most difficult times in the history of the State. But Charlie was always seeking new ideas even when times were bad. There was an obligation on every one of us [in Cabinet] to come up with fresh ideas to get the economy moving. I remember when we came into Government in 1987 he made a demand on every Cabinet Minister to produce something by the following week that would regenerate activity in the economy.”

Flynn describes Haughey as being at the peak of his powers in the late 1980s.

“He would be the first into work every morning. A lot of people might not have noticed but he never wore a watch. I remember asking him about it once and he said: ‘I don’t need a watch. I am surrounded by clocks!’

“Yet his timing was always impeccable. The Cabinet meetings did not start at 11.05 or 11.10; they started as the clock in what I used to call the ‘War Room’ struck eleven.

“And there were no frivolities at Cabinet meetings. It was business from the first moment, and the meeting was invariably finished before lunch. Business was done and it was done efficiently and effectively.”

It helped that Charles Haughey had a hands-on approach to the job of Taoiseach. Padraig Flynn was often amazed at his leader’s peerless command of the various portfolios that had been assigned to individual Cabinet ministers.

“He was on top of every departmental brief. He took them home and studied them so he always knew what he was talking about. He was hugely informed and that meant he was on top of the agenda so that decisions could be taken quickly at Government. He was not waiting for people to brief him at the Cabinet table; he already had the brief and was able to make decisions.”

Haughey’s skills at the week-ly Cabinet meetings were also in evidence in the Dáil chamber where he earned the reputation as one of the most formidable debaters of his generation.

“One would learn an awful lot from watching Haughey perform in the Dáil chamber, particularly on major issues like budgets,” recalls Flynn. “He was the consummate parliamentarian and he loved to get involved in the cut and thrust of political debate. He had great political skills and he knew the system and knew the Oireachtas procedures better than anyone - and they were followed meticulously. He never tolerated any interference with his parliamentary duties.

“And, of course, he was a great political survivor. He had to be! There was always people in the parliamentary party who were antagonistic towards him.”

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THE opening of Knock Airport on May 31st, 1986, was to be Charles Haughey’s finest hour in his relationship with his birth county of Mayo. Although he had been raised on Dublin’s Northside, Haughey was acutely conscious of his roots in Castlebar where he had been born in 1925.

“He never forgot his Mayo roots,” says Padraig Flynn. “In fact, he and I would joke about it occasionally, particularly when I was looking for his support for a particular initiative in Mayo! I think Mayo occupied a special place in his heart and that was evident in the choice of Mon-signor Quinn from Knock as one of the concelebrants of his Requiem Mass.”

Haughey’s involvement in the building of Knock Airport has been well documented and is almost the stuff of legend. He had been persuaded by Mon-signor James Horan to fund the airport during a luncheon at the Presbytery in Knock in the summer of 1980 and he never wavered in his advocacy of the controversial project. Mon-signor Horan would later claim that the airport would never have been built were it not for the staunch support offered by Charles Haughey. It’s a view shared by Padraig Flynn.

“Haughey never flinched. Never once. Even when the heat was coming on in the city [Dublin] and the nasty remarks of profligacy and white elephants were being thrown to our detriment in some Dublin constituencies. He never flinched. But, make no mistake, it cost him and the party an election.”

Many reasons were given for Haughey’s zealous endorsement of Monsignor Horan’s airport at Barr na Cuige. It was said he had an emotional attachment to Knock because his mother and sisters regularly visited the Marian Shrine. Padraig Flynn believes the former Taoiseach’s motivation was a little more prosaic.

“Haughey had a very clear understanding about the disad-vantage that Ireland was suffering in the early 1980s insofar as transport was concerned - both internal and external. There was a problem getting people into the country and there was a problem getting people and exports out. He was all for the airport’s development as he was for the development of airports in Kerry, Galway, Sligo and Letterkenny. He saw Knock as another crucial link in that chain of western airports. He believed that these airports were necessary to take away the isolation that existed in the West of Ireland.”

Haughey’s interest in the airport was evident in his decision to become a member of the Government’s working group, which was established in 1980 to oversee the project. The Taoiseach had firmly placed his cards on the table.

“If Haughey was interested in something that needed to be done he would get personally involved,” says Flynn. “He was keenly aware of what was needed for the country. In fact, I would say that he knew everything that was happening in the country. He was clued in or briefed on every issue or project. He had that network built up in the Fianna Fáil party and he made sure that every minister and backbencher paid attention to the party machine at grassroots level. He did it himself and he regarded it as imperative for all those who were elected.

“You had to be at the coal-face, knowing what ordinary people were enduring and what there needs were. That’s how you governed. Once you became divorced from that you were no longer in touch.

“One thing I would say about Charles J Haughey is that he had the common touch. He could walk and talk with kings and prime ministers but he also had the common touch and was in constant contact with his own constituents. That was the secret to his success.”

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IT was in 1990 that Padraig Flynn - then the Minister for the Environment - and Charles Haughey took a famous helicopter ride from Dublin to the Ceide Fields in North Mayo. Flynn had been contacted by Seamus Caulfield and his late father who were eager to build an interpretative centre on the neolithic site. Charles Haughey was immediately interested.

“He rang me up one Friday morning and said: ‘Let’s go and see these Ceide Fields’,” recalls Padraig Flynn. “I remember travelling across Ireland with him that day in the helicopter and he was pointing out different places and features of the landscape. He loved Ireland and he was a great Irishman. That’s why he lent his support to the Ceide Fields. It did not matter to him that there were very few votes out of the project. He had a care and a concern for Ireland and for Irish history. That was his motivation.”

But politics is a ruthless business. Within eighteen months of that memorable helicopter journey, Padraig Flynn and Charles Haughey were in the throes of a deadly political battle. Haughey appeared to be the winner when Flynn was fired from his Cabinet post in the dying days of 1991. But the Taoiseach’s victory was to be short-lived. Within months he had resigned and Flynn had regained his Cabinet position - this time as Minister for Justice under a new Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds.

“We had professional differences but there was never a personal row between us,” recalls Flynn. “I always found him to be a very tolerant man. He was tolerant of opponents. He did not hold a grudge against anyone and there wasn’t any vindictive streak in him. If you had a political disagreement with him it would be business as usual ten minutes later. That’s the sort of man he was. He was a true professional politician.”

As if to prove his point, Padraig Flynn recalls a visit to Abbeville several years after Charles Haughey had retired from politics.

“I had gone to Europe and we had lost contact in the mid-1990s. But I went out to see him in Abbeville a few years ago after I heard he wasn’t well. I knocked on the open door and he came to the top of the stairs and said: ‘Come in, Flynn’. It was as if nothing had ever passed between us, as if the intervening period had not happened at all.”

Padraig Flynn was a frequent visitor to Abbeville in the last five years; his political differences with ‘The Boss’ firmly consigned to the past. And his loyalty to his former political master is as steadfast now as it was in their heydey of the 1980s, particularly when it comes to defending Haughey on charges of soliciting financial donations from leading businessmen.

“I’ve said it in public before and it is worth saying it again: Never once in my personal knowledge did Charles Haughey seek political support or economic advantage for any of his friends. Never once. And I never heard anything different from any of my colleagues.”

Padraig Flynn is firmly of the view that history will be much kinder to Charles J Haughey than the adversaries and critics who were always snapping at the former Taoiseach’s heels.

“On a personal level, Charles Haughey was a man of great charisma and poise,” notes Flynn. “He had a steely intelligence and that became very obvious when you spoke to him. He didn’t waste time talking about minutia. He was always well versed in the bigger picture.

“As a statesman, he had a wonderful presence. He was not large in physical stature but he certainly filled a room when he entered it. I would say that he was a very good Taoiseach for Ireland and, indeed, for the West of Ireland. He greatly enhanced Irish politics internationally and he achieved this at a time when things were very difficult in this country.

“But my abiding memory of Charles J Haughey is that he was always optimistic. He never had a slave mentality. He had a very strong vision for Ireland and I believe that history will be exceptionally kind to his achievements and to his unique vision.”

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