HARLIE HAUGHEY AND ME
Now a sprightly 93, Denis O’Callaghan remembers every fascinating detail of his time as Charlie Haughey’s private secretary. Was he good to work for? ‘No, but he was exciting...’
EACH morning Denis O’Callaghan made sure to remind his boss, one Charles J. Haughey, of what was in his diary for that day.
Although Haughey was given a list each week with all his appointments, O’Callaghan — who was his private secretary when he was Minister for Agriculture — knew he rarely bothered looking at it too closely.
On one particular morning, Haughey and his wife Maureen were due to attend a formal lunch at the German ambassador’s residence in Dublin’s Ballsbridge.
‘He’d agreed to go to it some time before,’ explains O’Callaghan. ‘It was a really big occasion for the Germans, an important feast day, so it was a very formal lunch that had been organised for a long time.
‘It was on the weekly list, but he didn’t really study that, so on the morning of the lunch I said to him; “By the way, you know you’re going to lunch at the German embassy with Mrs Haughey?” “Where? I’m not going there,” he says to me. “But we’ve agreed to it, it’s very important, the ambassador is expecting you,” I said back to him. “I’m not going to that, you go,” he says.
‘“But it’s a thing for politicians,” I tell him, but he insists; “It doesn’t matter, you go.”
‘It was about 10am and I had to ring my wife, who was at home with three of our young kids, and give the news to her. “There’s a lunch on in the German Embassy and the Minister says I have to go and you have to come with me.” “I can’t go to that,” she says. “I’ve nothing to wear and my hair isn’t done.”
“Well you better do something about it,” I tell her. “Because this man doesn’t take no for an answer.”
A couple of hours later the O’Callaghans found themselves being formally greeted at the door of the German Ambassador’s house.
‘There were a whole lot of guys in full Prussian military uniforms and those big Prussian hats,’ says Denis. ‘It was assumed that I was the assistant minister there in place of the proper minister, they didn’t know I was a mere modest civil servant.
‘At lunch we were seated at either end of a big long table, I was sat next to the Ambassador’s wife while my wife Maureen was sitting beside the Ambassador. We were the guests of honour, so all these guys in their elaborate uniforms were coming over to meet us, clicking their heels and bowing to us.’
O’Callaghan laughs out loud at the memory of this rather surreal experience. ‘But the best part was the ambassador’s name, Reifferscheidt, which when pronounced out loud sounds fairly rude to an Irish person,’ he adds. ‘So I’ve always called that story: “At lunch with the Reifferscheidts.”’
Although he was Haughey’s private secretary for just 18 months, O’Callaghan has plenty of stories from his time with Ireland’s most controversial politician. And even though he is now 93 years old and it is more than five decades since he worked for him, O’Callaghan remembers them all with an impressive and enviable clarity — but, until recently, has been reluctant to share them publicly.
‘I was always very cautious while Mrs Haughey was alive,’ he explains. ‘I got to know her when I was with him and I liked her a lot, so I was cautious about saying anything about her husband.’
This charming nonagenarian cuts a rather dashing figure when we meet at the Holy Family Residence, a nursing home/assisted living centre in Clonskeagh, where he moved into his own apartment just last year. A blue checked blazer is teamed with a dark red silk tie, which on closer inspection is patterned with tiny panda bears. On his lapel is his Pioneer badge, which he received on his Confirmation day. It’s a pledge he has never broken — he has never drunk alcohol or smoked a cigarette, something he believes has helped him enjoy rude health and a sharp brain into his old age. Originally from Cork City, he is one of 26 men and women born in the early years of the Irish Free State to feature in a new book by former RTÉ journalist and broadcaster, Valerie Cox. Growing Up With Ireland tells their stories, building up a beautifully evocative picture of a bygone era. It includes tales of growing up in households with no electricity, run-ins with the Black & Tans and witnessing Eamon de Valera speak to crowds in local town squares. It’s a fascinating insight into the not-so-distant past. And O’Callaghan’s contribution is a stand out, from his early years in Cork city, where he was born into a modest household, being educated by the Christian Brothers and at the age of 17 getting one of the 24 precious jobs that were on offer in the civil service in 1943. He found himself by the side of Ireland’s most dominant politicians in 1964, shortly after Haughey was appointed Minister of Agriculture.
O’CALLAGHAN had been in the Agriculture department since 1946, working his way up from a junior executive role to Head of Information. Much to his surprise, he discovered he had been moved into the new minister’s office while out walking during his lunch break one day.
‘I came across the Head of Personnel, Peter Brennan, in Stephen’s Green,’ he says. ‘He told me he had a new job for me, that the new Minister wanted a new private secretary and it was decided at the top level it was to be me.
‘I said I’d need to discuss it with my wife but there was no question of that, it was all done and dusted. I was now a private secretary, and once that happens, they own you. I was at his beck and call, 24 hours a day. The children were very young at the time and they got very used to answering the phone at home when it would be Haughey, saying: “Is Mr O’Callaghan there?”’
By this stage Haughey was already a very well-known face in politics, elected to the Dáil in 1957 as a Fianna Fáil TD. He had married then-taoiseach Sean Lemass’s daughter Maureen in 1951.
An impressive and unashamedly ambitious politician, he was appointed Minister for Justice in 1961 but was moved on to Agriculture three years later.
O’Callaghan was only too aware of who his new boss was.
‘His reputation was as being a difficult man to work with and a very ambitious man,’ he says. ‘And of course, he was the taoiseach’s son-in-law and had to be respected.’
With no prior experience in agriculture and raised in a suburb of Dublin, there was much opposition to Haughey’s appointment from the farming sector. O’Callaghan confirms he had little knowledge or indeed interest in rural matters.
‘He was raised in Donnycarney,’ he says. ‘And now he was Minister for Agriculture with 270,000 farmers in the country, he was their man. You don’t learn anything about agriculture in Donnycarney. But he got on well enough with the representatives.’
Always shrewd, Haughey earned himself a grace period after ordering a special Mass and celebration to take place on the Feast of St Isidore, the patron saint of agriculture. A friar was flown in from Rome to give the service at the cathedral in Athlone and it was followed by a huge reception at the Hodson Bay Hotel, owned at the time by the his pal Brian Lenihan’s family.
The actual organisation of the event was left to O’Callaghan. It was a huge success.
‘That was his way of getting in with the bigwigs, anyone significant was at that Mass,’ says O’Callaghan. ‘But in practical terms, he didn’t really know it and he didn’t really concentrate on his portfolio, he had so many other things on his plate. Of course he was extremely ambitious, he wanted the top job. It was very obvious.
‘He’d have Brian Lenihan, Donagh O’Malley, Neil Blaney, Kevin Boland, all of those guys in and out to him, bossing them around.’
After a rather frosty start, O’Callaghan quickly got used to his new boss.
‘I was next door to him and when he came in each morning, you’d know what kind of mood he was in by the way the door slammed,’ he says. ‘And then when the first buzzer went, if it was long and loud, he was in bad humour; a gentle tap meant he was in good form. It was 50/50 what kind of humour
he’d be in, every day was different and like the German embassy lunch story, you could find yourself in any kind of situation. Was he nice to work for? No, but he was exciting.’
O’Callaghan says he wasn’t surprised at the 1990s series of revelations about Haughey’s finances, that he had embezzled money from the party to fund his lavish lifestyle, which famously included a wardrobe filled with Charvet shirts.
‘He wanted the best,’ says O’Callaghan. ‘He came from a very modest background and he wanted the top job. Nearly every day he and his cohorts would go to the Russell Hotel on Stephen’s Green for lunch.
‘And he always loved to have receptions in Dublin Castle. There was one I remember he had for the European convention of goldsmiths, which was being held in Dublin. He said: “Let’s have a reception for them in the Castle,” even though he was Minister for Agriculture. Of course they came along with very generous gifts...
‘Or the time he wanted his swimming pool in Kinsealy filled for a party he was throwing there — we’d great trouble getting it done. Eventually we got on to Dublin Corporation and explained that it had to happen on this day. And it was done.’
Haughey was moved on to become Minister of Finance in 1966.
‘Before leaving, he handed me a letter and told me he’d promoted me,’ says O’Callaghan. ‘I never had any dealings again with him after that.’
Was he sad to see public opinion turn so against Haughey in his later years?
‘Not that sad, no,’ he says. ‘I felt it was inevitable, he was overambitious and attracted a lot of company, everyone was buzzing around him. People latched on.’
While at the coalface of helping to run the country for more than 40 years, O’Callaghan says he never had any personal political allegiance to one particular party.
‘I was a pure civil servant, I voted for Fianna Gael or Fianna Fáil, whichever I saw fit at the time,’ he says. ‘I had no political background and I went into the civil service when I was 17. At the time it was drilled into you; your allegiance is to the minister of the day and nobody else.
‘I had 17 ministers for agriculture, I was only a clerk and never met some of them in the early stages. But in later years I dealt with lots of them. One who stood out was Mark Clinton, a Fine Gael Minister, he was brilliant. He was wonderful from a civil servant point of view, because unlike others, he read his brief and he more or less did what was recommended and got brilliant results.
‘But please don’t ask me who I would regard as the worst, I have a few in mind.’
After retiring from the civil service at the age of 62, O’Callaghan spent the next 20 years volunteering as manager of the Dublin Food Bank.
‘That was a lovely job,’ he says. ‘I gave that up when I was in my 80s.’
With more time on his hands he turned back to his first love, music. Playing the fiddle since he was eight years old, he spent his ninth decade studying to become a traditional Irish music teacher.
‘I was the eldest to get a qualification from Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann when I was 87 years old,’ he says. ‘I play for the residents here most days, just before lunch for about 20 minutes, mostly traditional reels and show tunes.’
He only left his home of 65 years in Goatstown last year.
‘My wife Maureen died in 2007, she had cancer and actually came here to the hospice where they took such good care of her in her final days,’ he says. ‘I lived on my own for 11 years but then the responsibility of running a house became too much and I was also worried about my own personal security — you hear so many awful stories.’
His one-bedroom apartment overlooks the leafy grounds of the care home and parked downstairs is his bright blue Yaris car, which he uses to visit his three daughters, Anne, Cora and Mary.
‘My son Paul is a priest and theologian based in Rome,’ he says. ‘I have ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, the youngest was only born a couple of months ago. Between seeing them, playing music every week down in the comhaltas in Monkstown and going down the lawn bowls club in Blackrock, I’m kept very busy.’
AND now there is the excitement of Valerie Cox’s book. He appeared on Sean O’Rourke’s RTE Radio One show recently, reminiscing about Haughey of course, but also explaining how he met his wife Maureen at a dance in Dublin in 1951. He still treasures the ticket from that dance after all these years, and keeps it in a small clear plastic bag.
‘Three shillings it cost to get in,’ he says, handing me the perfectly preserved peach-coloured stub. ‘That was a lot of money in those days, especially when you were earning just £9 a month. But it was worth it.’
Speaking of romance, did he ever come across Terry Keane — the gossip columnist who sensationally revealed on The Late Late Show in 1999 that she had an affair with Haughey for 27 years — during his time with The Boss?
‘Well now, I have no idea about any of that,’ he says firmly. ‘But if there was an affair, it would have happened after he left Agriculture. What I can tell you is that there was a lot of interest in him from the opposite sex, lots of phone calls from lots of women...’
÷ GROWING Up With Ireland: A Century of Memories From Our Oldest and Wisest Citizens by Valerie Cox, €18.99, easons.com