Yesterday's removal was all about family, God and getting through, writes Miriam Lord
Just for an hour last evening, a gap opened between the acres of newsprint and the thicket of talk. A family in mourning walked through it. They were a small group - wife, children, sister, brother, grandchildren, mothers. The young grandchildren tried to fight the tears, but this was their Granddad's funeral. They cried as they walked up the aisle behind his coffin.
No matter that it was draped in a Tricolour and borne to the altar by military pallbearers. Or that the President of Ireland sat in the front row of the packed church, with An Taoiseach and his Cabinet close by. They wouldn't have noticed three bishops were on hand to receive the remains. Or that TV cameras were recording the service and journalists had to wear laminated passes to get inside the door of the church.
Since Charlie Haughey's death on Tuesday, his life has been parsed and analysed in minute detail. It's to be expected - he was no ordinary man. Rows have been raging over the airwaves about him. Where do you stand on CJH? Villain or hero? Talk to Joe. Write to Madam. It's easy to forget, amid the welter of argument about this very public and hugely controversial man, that a family is grieving his loss.
Yet, for most of the day around Donnycarney church, the atmosphere could be described as verging on the festive. From early morning, staunch supporters of the former taoiseach gathered to await the arrival of his remains from his Abbeville Mansion in Kinsealy. Or "Kinsaley" as CJH preferred to spell it.
Following a brief, private family service, members of the public would be allowed file past the open casket and pay their last respects. One of the first to do so was Mayo TD Beverley Flynn. One of the last, in late afternoon, was Gerry Hutch, aka The Monk. And in between, a rich mix of humanity of a certain age.
The bus pass generation came out in force. As the queue stretched around the corner until it was opposite the entrance to Parnell Park, people fell to reminiscing about Charlie and swapping funny stories about him. The craic was good, and the coffee shop in the community centre began to doing a roaring trade.
Kerry footballing great Páidí Ó Sé strolled by with photographer Colman Doyle and was given a great welcome, even though he was walking by the home of Dublin GAA. Charlie Bird was showing off his shiny silk Charvet tie, not unlike the one we would see on the other Charlie as he lay in eternal repose. The queue moved in through the church, past the cameras and broadcast booths, past the votive candles and statues to a small annex in the far corner. The mood was different now.
We left our bravado at the mortuary door. Was this a good idea at all? But you had to look. Even just to establish if the people coming from Abbeville yesterday had been telling the truth, or just imagining what they wanted to see. You had to look.
And no. It was just nostalgia taking over, wishful thinking. Charlie didn't have that familiar, mischievous smile on his face. There was no "old look of divilment". This wasn't any CJH we ever knew.
Still. They say there are no pockets in a shroud. The Squire will be buried today in a smart navy suit. It was taken straight from the wardrobe labelled "statesman" - the sober, well-cut suit, the contrasting blue shirt and the light blue silk tie. There was, though, a hint of his expensive sartorial tastes in the large gold cufflinks with CJH engraved on them.
No. This wasn't any Charlie we ever knew. No leer, no sneer, no snarl or baleful eye or basilisk stare. Suddenly, like the old lady who cheerfully declared "Charlie is me darlin" before she went in, we were dabbing away the tears. But you had to look.
Once outside, the stories started again. Susan Thomas from Artane told us that she grew up in Moore Street but moved out northside in 1952, where she reared nine children. Money was very tight, and it was terrible having to send off ground rent to a landlord in England.
"Most of them were English lords, except for Mick Jagger. I'm nearly sure they were paying ground rent to him in parts of Donnycarney. Then Charlie came along and said enough is enough. You're not paying it to Mick Jagger or anyone else. And that was that. We never paid a penny again."
After the initial rush, the queue became a trickle. The estimated tens of thousands never materialised yesterday. But then, this suburb is no different to any other in its indifference to matters political.
Outside the coffee shop, the ladies were talking turkey.
"A man used to come around with them in a trailer," said Frances. "Charlie reared them."
"Where did they come from?" we asked.
"Belton Park"
"The turkeys?"
"No. The Haugheys."
Frances, Marion, Jean, Theresa and Jason roared laughing. Marion's mother used to work in the Theatre Royal as a dresser, where she met all the big stars. This was a source of great hilarity. "Write that you met John Wayne's love-child in Donnycarney on the day of Charlie's funeral."
Even in death, CJH was still doing his bit for the local economy, the Le Chéile Coffee shop was flying, and the lunches flew out of Celestine's brasserie across on the Malahide Road.
It seemed like an age until the removal service at 5pm. Leinster House arrived in a fleet of buses. Dermot Desmond, Oliver Barry, Charlie Chawke and Fr Brian D'Arcy were among the morners. PJ Mara arrived, sounding chipper but looking pale and thin. Charlie's former constituents piled in. They didn't need the big screens outside because the crowd wasn't huge. Perhaps it was the England World Cup game, or perhaps it was that people just don't care.
Whatever the reason, it didn't matter to the small group who made their way up the aisle to the top pew. Sunlight streamed through the glass windows, and there was beautiful music and poetry. Fr Eoghan Haughey spoke from the altar with great love and loyalty about his brother.
"Defiant" ventured one journalist afterwards. It wasn't. It was love and sorrow and celebration. It was about family, God and getting through.