PJ Mara on his screen persona: ‘Colin Firth should play me’

Patrick Freyne

Colin Teevan, screenwriter for the 2015 TV series ‘Charlie’, recalls meeting the late Government press secretary PJ Mara – who has died aged 73 – as part of his research for the script.

You met PJ Mara when researching the RTÉ drama Charlie. Why did he agree to meet you?

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Then taoiseach Charles Haughey with government press secretary PJ Mara during the 1989 general election. Phtograph: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland

“My experience of PJ was that he was a great realist. He saw that the drama was an inevitability, and unlike some others he just thought it was better to get his spoke in rather than have someone make it up. In that sense, after the years of being a great PR man he understood a story was going to be printed and that he may as well try and put a steer on it.

“Personally, I absolutely liked him. I found him utterly charming. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him . . . I would never want to have a game of poker with him but that was part of the charm. I found him very helpful. I didn’t know the private man at all. But he was brilliant. He was full of scandal and gossip, and there was a real warmth there.

"His first question... was 'Who's playing me?' At one point he got in contact and said: 'I just saw The King's Speech. I think Colin Firth should play me.' I would imagine he was quite tickled that Tom [Vaughan Lawlor] played him. I think there's something of the real man in how Tom played him.

“He was Charlie’s court jester, but like King Lear’s fool, he was no fool at all. He could utter truths to him that no one else could. Some of the lines and stories in Charlie are straight from PJ.

“There might be a line [in there from Mara] about North-side boys loving a posh girl. The whole Il Duce thing – [Mara famously characterised his Haughey’s style with the Italian fascist party slogan: ‘Uno duce, una voce,’ before adding, ‘There’ll be no more nibbling at my leader’s bum.’] Charlie didn’t know where the quote came from and let it ride. [Charles Haughey] was appalled when he heard it came from Mussolini. But then it became part of the myth. Mara was a great mythmaker.”

What was his influence? "There was a moment in an episode of Charlie towards the end where [Mara] more or less fashioned Haughey as El Diablo, where he said 'Be the bad boy. Embrace who you are.' He changed Irish politics because he changed how we perceived politicians. Before that you had an apparently stuffy bunch... Charlie and O'Malley and Brian Lenihan used to rave it up back in the 1960s, but no one would hear about it.

"I think PJ really cottoned on that [the 1980s] were the age of conspicuous consumption, of Dallas and Dynasty. Getting rich ceased to be a dirty thing. By creating the image of Charlie, he created the aspiration of the Celtic Tiger generation. Everyone could be Charlie. Everyone could live the high life."