Logbook details controversial FF calls to Hillery

THE BITTER controversy over phone calls by senior members of Fianna Fáil to Áras an Uachtaráin in the early 1980s has been brought vividly to life with the online publication of the logbook kept by the Army officer on duty at the time.

Then president Patrick Hillery famously refused to speak to Charles Haughey, Brian Lenihan snr and their associates when they sought to persuade him to refuse a dissolution of the Dáil so that Fianna Fáil could attempt to form a government without a general election.

The episode took place on the night of January 27th, 1982, after the Fine Gael-led coalition had just lost a key budget vote over its proposed tax on children’s shoes.

As opposition leader, Haughey wanted Hillery to exercise the presidential prerogative to refuse to dissolve the Dáil so that an alternative government could be established.

Over almost two hours, six calls were made by Haughey, his private secretary Catherine Butler, Lenihan and Clare Fianna Fáil TD Sylvester Barrett. Haughey even proposed going to the Áras in person, but Hillery instructed his domestic staff to “bar the gates”. In the end, the Dáil was dissolved and Haughey came back as taoiseach after the general election for a brief period of nine months.

These events came back to haunt Fianna Fáil during the 1990 presidential election when Lenihan, who was the party’s candidate, tried unsuccessfully to deny having contacted the Áras that night.

In his private papers, Hillery kept a copy of the relevant pages from assistant aide-de-camp Capt Oliver Barbour’s logbook.

These were reproduced yesterday on historyhub.ie, coinciding with a discussion on RTÉ Radio 1's The History Show.

The website is funded by the UCD school of history and archives. The Hillery papers were deposited by the former president in the UCD archives in 1991 and 1997.

Dr John Walsh of Trinity College Dublin, author of Patrick Hillery: The Official Biography, said last night: “It is very useful that people can see Capt Barbour’s logbook for themselves.

“It confirms the account I gave in the Hillery biography where the log is quoted extensively.

“Hillery did not regard the phone calls as improper in themselves but was angry that Haughey had orchestrated pressure on him over a period of time to prevent a general election. This began with a verbal approach at the National Concert Hall two months previously.”

Dr Walsh said Hillery also “objected to Haughey threatening to come up to the Áras and always believed only the taoiseach could attend at the Áras on such occasions”.

“He didn’t have to bar the gates in the end, because Haughey didn’t attempt to come up.”

Dr Walsh said the relationship between Hillery and Haughey was “cold and distant” for a number of reasons, including the fact that Hillery believed Haughey was the source of rumours about his private life three years earlier.

Hillery later sought a meeting with the chief of staff of the Defence Forces, Lieut Gen Louis Hogan, to put it on record that everything Capt Barbour did that night was at his request.