Anyone who doesn't believe that history repeats itself should look up pages 214 and 215 of Hugo Duffy's recent James Gandon and His Times. They will find an astonishingly uncanny letter to the architect from his patron, John Beresford, written in 1795.
Beresford had just managed to defeat an attempt to dismiss him as chairman of the Revenue Commissioners. "Dear Gandon," he wrote, "Many thanks for your kind letter. I could not have a doubt of your sentiments as to me. I see great inquiries on foot, but they will all end to the confusion of those whose malice has dictated them. As things have turned out, I shall not have occasion to remove.
"You may imagine that my mind is at present in a state of uncertainty as I cannot, for a few days at least, foresee what may be the consequences of the turn things have taken. I shall, therefore, look to Abbeville as my great object, and make it as comfortable as I can afford to do . . ."
Beresford, who had long been surrounded by a whiff of corruption, was referring to the fine house in Kinsealy, Co Dublin, which Gandon had designed for him. Might not its current occupant, Charles J. Haughey, have written in similar terms to his faithful friend, the architect Arthur Gibney? And might not he have railed against the Revenue Commissioners, foreseen great inquiries and malice, an ending in confusion and eventual retirement to Abbeville.