BOOK OF THE DAY: DEAGLAN DE BREADUNreviews Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia; By Michael Clifford and Shane Coleman; Hachette Books Ireland. 377pp. € 14.99
THERE IS a classic story of Bertie Ahern in the peace process. The Ulster Unionist Party were meeting the then-taoiseach with Tony Blair, to lodge a major complaint on an issue of the day. Having heard the UUP spokesman out, Blair, without a moment’s hesitation, called on Ahern to respond. As an insider tells it, Ahern spoke four sentences: each of them made sense on its own but, taken as a whole, his statement was indecipherable. As the UUP group pondered all the possible meanings of what he had just said, Blair moved swiftly on:
“Next business.”
It’s an illustration of Ahern at his best. He sends out a message to the effect that, “I hear what you’re saying”, but when you parse and analyse what he’s just said it is impossible to reach a clear and definitive result.
This ability to be all things to all people without handing yourself over to any individual or group, helps explain his success as a negotiator, both in Northern Ireland and on the industrial front.
Ambiguity can be constructive in the context of national or class conflict, but it doesn’t play well in the world of hard cash. How many have listened to or read Ahern’s pronouncements on his personal finances at the Mahon tribunal only to come away shaking their heads and wondering: what is he talking about and how would it all come across in plain English?
The authors, two highly-respected journalists from the Sunday Tribune, have boldly gone where less-hardy souls would fear to tread. They have peered into the mist that surrounds the financial affairs of “The Bert” and come up with a very lucid and entertaining account of the story so far.
“Follow the money!” was the watchword of the underground car-park source, “Deep Throat”, as he guided Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward through the intricacies of the Watergate affair.
This is exactly what Clifford and Coleman do, as they lead us through the bewildering saga of alleged “dig-outs”, curious foreign-currency transactions, parcels of cash in strange locations and other bizarre financial arrangements that make up the weird and wonderful world of Ahern and his money.
It was said of Watergate that, if it had happened in Ireland, the journalists would have gone to jail while Nixon remained as president; nor would there have been any “Deep Throat” because his silence would have been bought.
Inevitably, it was Charles Haughey who coined the term, “Drumcondra Mafia” for the locally-based team of friends and party workers who have worked with and for Ahern throughout his political career. The authors point out that some key figures are not even members of Fianna Fáil: their first loyalty is to Ahern.
The story is like a rosary of political mysteries, e.g., who were the 25 people who allegedly contributed an annual £1,000 for five years or so for the purchase and renovation of St Luke’s, Ahern’s fabled headquarters, raising the phenomenal amount, for the late 1980s, of up to £131,000?
Then there were the “dig-outs”, alleged collections among friends and admirers of Ahern to help him at times of supposed difficulty. Documentary evidence of these is extremely scarce and the authors raise doubts as to whether they happened at all.
There was more, much more, but it all came crashing down when Ahern’s secretary, Gráinne Carruth, was understandably overcome with emotion at the tribunal last year. That was the end of Ahern as taoiseach and now, with the rest of us, he awaits the tribunal report. This account does not suggest it will be good news, and yet, untold numbers in the North may owe their lives, in part, to this man.
Deaglán de Bréadún is Political Correspondent of The Irish Times