Timeline

September 16th 1925:
Charles Haughey born in Castlebar, Co Mayo

1951:
Marries Mairin Lemass, daughter of Sean Lemass

1951: Establishes Haughey Boland & Co with his friend Harry Boland

1957:
Elected TD for Dublin North East

1960:
Appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice by Taoiseach, Sean Lemass

1961:
Appointed Minister for Justice

1964:
Appointed Minister for Agriculture

1965:
Appointed Minister for Education

1966:
Serves as director of elections for Eamon de Valera in the presidential election

1966:
Lemass retires as leader of Fianna Fail; Jack Lynch elected after Lemass encouraged Blaney and Haughey to withdraw from the contest in Lynch’s favour

1966:
Haughey appointed Minister for Finance, increases public spending in his four budgets from 1966 to 1969. Introduces free travel and subsidised electricity for older people, tax exemptions for artists

1969:
Haughey purchases house and lands at Abbeville, Kinsealy, Co Dublin

1970:
Haughey and Neil Blaney accused of using a £100,000 fund set up to support the nationalist people in Northern Ireland to import arms for use by the IRA at a time of intense political tension. Both are sacked from Lynch’s cabinet.

1975:
Haughey recalled to Jack Lynch’s front bench as spokesman on health and social welfare.

1977: FF landslide election victory - Haughey appointed to Lynch’s cabinet as Minister for Health and Social Welfare

December 1979:
Jack Lynch resigns as Taoiseach and leader of FF. Haughey and his former St Joseph’s CBS classmate George Colley go head-to-head for the leadership role. After a bitter battle, Haughey emerges the victor by 44 votes to 38.

December 11th 1979:
Haughey elected Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail

December 11th 1979-30th June 1981:
Haughey serves first term as Taoiseach

January 9th 1980:
Haughey makes his famous "living way beyond our means" speech, signalling major spending cuts and the beginning of a bleak period of unemployment, emigration and cuts in the health service

March 9th 1982-December 14th 1982:
Haughey serves second term as taoiseach

1982-1983:
The phones Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold are tapped. A decade later, then Minister for Justice Sean Doherty would admit handing transcripts of the conversations to Haughey directly - the Doherty revelations ultimately force Haughey’s resignation in 1992.

1985:
Anglo-Irish Agreement signed by then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The agreement is criticised by Haughey, who promises to renegotiate it if re-elected. When he is re-elected he works within the parametres of the agreement.

March 10th 1987-February 11th 1992:
Haughey serves third and final term as taoiseach.

1987:
Haughey heads a minority Fianna Fail government. Tough economic stance and cuts in spending supported by Fine Gael in opposition.

1987:
Finance Act designates a special area in Dublin that, with the help of tax incentives put in place by the Haughey government, was to become the highly successful International Financial Services Centre (IFSC).

1989:
Haughey calls general election for June 15th, in which FF loses four seats. Fails to achieve a majority in the vote for Taoiseach and was obliged, under the Constitution, to resign. Eventually handed his resignation to President Patrick Hillery but remained on as acting Taoiseach. 27 days after the election, Fianna Fail enters its first ever coalition government with the Progressive Democrats.

1990:
Brian Lenihan, a close friend of Haughey’s and Fianna Fail’s candidate in the presidential election, loses the election to Mary Robinson following. Lenihan’s campaign was damaged by revelations of phone calls he made to Aras an Uachtarain to urge the president not to dissolve the Dail in 1982.

January 30th, 1992:
Following a series of perceived political misjudgments in the previous two years, Haughey retires as leader of Fianna Fáil at the parliamentary party meeting. In his speech to the Dail, Haughey quoted Othello: "I have done the state some service; they know’t; no more of that."

February 11th 1992:
Haughey is succeeded as leader and taoiseach by Albert Reynolds

1992 general election:
Sean Haughey elected to his father’s former seat in Dublin North Central

September 1997:
Moriarty Tribunal formally established by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to establish the nature and source of payments made to Charles Haughey and Michael Lowry of Fine Gael between January 1979 and December 1996. The tribunal has so far uncovered payments totalling more than £8 million to Haughey, including one payment of £1.3 million from the businessman Ben Dunne. The tribunal recently heard from the Revenue Commissioners that Haughey paid £3.94 million (EUR5 million) in settlement of an estimated tax bill of £5.5 million (EUR6.98 million) from Haughey in 2003. He also told the tribunal he had received no gifts of money since 1997 and was living on borrowings from a building society.

1999:
Columnist Terry Keane reveals her long-standing romantic relationship with Haughey in an appearance on The Late Late Show

2003:
The Haugheys sell Abbeville to Manor Park Homes for a reported EUR45 million.