The higher he rose, the lower he stooped

There are immense difficulties attempting to place in some sort of historical context events that concluded a bare 10 years ago - the more so when the hidden truths about 1980s Ireland are now daily being dredged up and presented to us. That said, the stark reality of Irish political life in that decade serves also to underline just how much Ireland truly was another country then.

With the so-called pro-life constitutional amendment of 1983 and the failure three years later to delete the anti-divorce article from the Constitution, Roman Catholic religious absolutism seemed all-powerful. In fact, it was having its last hurrah (although it did not seem like it at the time). The economy was a wreck, with emigration continuing apace. And Northern Ireland was a source of almost unremitting gloom.

The decade began with an aborted hunger strike by IRA and INLA inmates of the Maze Prison. A failed settlement prompted a resumption, which led to 10 deaths in 1981. It was a black period indeed: a seemingly endless procession of funerals, black flags throughout nationalist areas of Northern Ireland, and also in Sinn Fein strongholds in the South.

For a time, it seemed like republicans were glorying in death, wallowing in defeat. And defeat it was for sure. Sinn Fein and the IRA did not ignite popular opinion in the way they thought they would. Instead, the hunger strike tactic (and the excrement smearing, so-called dirty protest) merely sickened most people. If the hunger strikes helped to convince Sinn Fein that none of their tactics, not even killing themselves, would deliver victory, then they served a purpose. Nearly 20 years later, it looks like the Belfast loyalist graffito artist had it about right: "We'll never forget you, Jimmy Sands."

The most significant impact Northern politics had on the Republic was to help deny Charles Haughey the election victory he craved in 1981. A temporary surge in support for Sinn Fein won the party two Dail seats - Cavan-Monaghan and Louth - thereby letting in a Fine Gael-Labour coalition from June 1981 until March 1982.

Haughey was never to achieve the overall majority he so desperately wanted. And he always blamed someone else: the hunger strikes, the opposition to him within Fianna Fail - opposition that became so pronounced it spawned the foundation of the Progressive Democrats in 1985. The truth is that Charles Haughey was his own greatest enemy.

It has become fashionable today for people calling radio phone-in programmes to ask why they were not told about Charles Haughey when he bestrode the political landscape. The fact is that people were told a huge amount about him but chose to ignore it.

The plain people of Ireland were told time beyond number that Haughey was a political thug and still they elected him. And the movers and shakers within the greatest political party this State has known also backed him time and again, despite all they were told and knew themselves: that he was a dangerous, self-obsessed, narcissistic bully.

Worse than that, lots of people who really knew the depth of his corruption - close personal associates, bank officials and accountants, to identify just a few - all covered it up and lied for him.

It was indeed bravery of a sort for Haughey to turn up for Jack Lynch's funeral recently. When he was alive, Haughey and his cohort reserved special bile and contempt for Lynch. They spat out his epithet: Honest Jack, they would sneer.

Garret FitzGerald, Fine Gael leader in succession to Liam Cosgrave, dominated the political landscape along with Haughey throughout the 1980s. The contrast could hardly have been greater: one transparently honest and decent, the other clearly (at least to anyone who cared to examine the evidence) an untrustworthy political hoodlum; one an effective operator (if only he would put his talents to proper good use), the other well-meaning but prone to bumbling.

Haughey and his supporters hated FitzGerald. In public and on formal occasions, such as whenever FitzGerald took over as Taoiseach, Haughey was always careful to conduct himself with poise and dignity. He was like that, Haughey: always on stage, always performing, always wanting to be thought of in the best possible light. His real feelings for FitzGerald were expressed in private or within the confines of the sort of semi-private relationships (sometimes with journalists) in which he felt safe. There was much sneering contempt, a lot of blue, foulmouthed abuse.

While this sort of behaviour remained unreported - save for John Waters's 1984 Hot Press interview in which Haughey spoke of wanting to push "a load of f**kers" over a cliff (after cutting their throats) - much was known about the man. By the time of his election as Fianna Fail leader in 1979 there had been, after all, what we now know as the Arms Crisis, and his subsequent period in internal party political exile.

As the 1980s began, it was assumed that Haughey would be a dynamic Taoiseach, a man who would get things done. Part of Haughey's appeal, at least in the eyes of his supporters, was the belief that, having made himself rich, he would do the same for the country. Of course the truth was that Haughey had made himself rich by accepting payments from businessmen and pilfering Fianna Fail's State-funded coffers. Although this was not generally known initially, as the decade progressed it became known to a widening circle of people.

However, soon after he became Taoiseach, it became clear that he was no inspired leader: he funked hard decisions and took the easy way out. On Northern Ireland, he played the hardline nationalist in opposition but behaved quite differently once in power. He thus inflamed expectations and exacerbated the problem. What evidence is there for this?

The most striking is his response to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was negotiated by FitzGerald and gave the Republic a right to be consulted on a range of matters concerning the governance of Northern Ireland. This, thundered Haughey, was a betrayal of Irish nationalism. But once in power, Haughey operated the agreement thoroughly.

On the economy, Haughey identified immediately after his election as Taoiseach an urgent need to control public spending but then proceeded to spend with a complete absence of responsibility. Far from moving to rectify Fianna Fail's ruinous 1977 manifesto commitments, and despite his early correct diagnosis that national belt-tightening was required, Haughey went on to declare that the recession was over and to spend taxpayers' money.

A typical example was the Talbot car workers dispute in 1981. Talbot wished to close its assembly plant in Santry, north Dublin. Haughey, desperate not to have a messy dispute on his constituency doorstep on the eve of an election, simply guaranteed the workers that the State - i.e. everyone else in Ireland - would pay their salaries!

Haughey lost the 1981 election and then Garret FitzGerald threw away his own coalition government by insisting on putting VAT on children's shoes. He said he had to because if he didn't, women with small feet could evade the tax by buying children's footwear. Jim Kemmy, the independent socialist TD from Limerick was having none of it (as he told everyone repeatedly) but FitzGerald persisted and so Kemmy brought the government down.

Thus Haughey was back for his notorious 1982 government. At the end of an eventful nine months, 39 Fianna Fail TDs and senators, plus Haughey himself, voted confidence in his leadership. Thirty-three did not.

That 40 to 33 vote (in February 1983) is perhaps the single greatest indictment against those who supported Haughey. They did so in the full knowledge of the abuses of power and intimidation he had orchestrated within the party, and in the full knowledge that his justice minister Sean Doherty had misused the Garda (to tap telephones and help Ray MacSharry bug a conversation with Martin O'Donoghue) and also stood accused of perverting justice in two jurisdictions - Northern Ireland and the Republic.

From late 1982 until 1987, Fine Gael and Labour were back in coalition. They provided competent - and honest - government but, while they left the State finances in reasonable shape, they were unsuccessful in rolling back the recession. Unemployment stood at 92,000 at the beginning of the decade but rose relentlessly under all governments to nudge 300,000 by the end of it.

HAUGHEY came back as Taoiseach from 1987 until his resignation in 1992, when Sean Doherty finally confirmed his involvement in the telephone tapping. It was during the 1987-1992 period (in which he was re-elected Taoiseach in 1989 in coalition with the Progressive Democrats) that most of the improper wealth acquisition and apparent tax evasion disclosed to date by the Moriarty Tribunal occurred.

Despite all his efforts, Haughey never achieved the unfettered power he craved. Apart from 1979 to 1981, when he had Lynch's majority, Charles Haughey never governed without the support of independents or coalition partners. The people never trusted him on his own.

However, it is amazing now to think that around 750,000 people consistently voted Fianna Fail first preference throughout his period as leader, and between 9,000 and 16,000 always gave him their first preference vote in his own north Dublin constituency. He inspired zealous devotion among his fans and was protected by an easy acceptance of the politics of stroke and cute hoorism he both practised and inspired. Many in Fianna Fail were against him - but more were not, and many were more than willing to serve under him.

Four members of the present government - Bertie Ahern, Seamus Brennan, Mary O'Rourke and Michael Woods - were his ministers, Woods in every cabinet. To his credit, Brennan is the only one with any sort of track record of opposition to him.

There is no doubt but that history will be kinder to Haughey than are today's commentators, myself included. It is ever thus: being so close to events means one cannot determine the dross, the irrelevancies, the things that only the passage of time can discard as useless.

Certainly Charles Haughey is not a wholly bad man. He did not start wars, he did not ruin his country and lay it waste, and when the people spoke at election time, he stepped aside from office and handed power to the opposition. All that said, however, I think one can predict with a fair degree of confidence that Charles Haughey will not be remembered primarily for giving free travel to old-age pensioners or for the refurbishment of Government Buildings.

Peter Murtagh is an assistant editor with The Irish Times and co-author with Joe Joyce of The Boss, a biography of Charles Haughey, published by Poolbeg in 1983 and updated in 1998