‘Tricky things, the affairs of State!’ — behind the velvet curtain at the Aras
Rubbing shoulders with the great and good often had its lighter moments, writes author and journalist Tom McCaughren
AS a reporter, I was privileged to meet and interview several presidents. Strange as it may seem, some of my memories of them are of quirky things — not things you would find in the history books.
For example, my meeting with President Sean T O’Kelly. I was young and freshly down from my native Co Antrim when I was assigned to cover a press conference he had called at the Aras. I found him to be a small man with a ready smile. I never met his wife, Phyllis, but photographs showed that she was a lot taller than he was. It was well known that he was fond of a drop of whiskey, something she was said to disapprove of. It was also said that he kept barrels of draught Guinness on tap in the Aras.
Whether or not that is true, De Valera is reported to have been worried about his drinking, and my visit to the Aras seemed to confirm that Phyllis also disapproved of it.
I can’t recall which photographer was with me, or what other members of the media may have been there, but to our surprise the first thing Sean T did was to ask us to help him move a large table over against the door.
Then, when he was sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, he took out a bottle of whiskey and asked us to join him!
De Valera was completely different; a tall, gaunt man who rarely smiled and didn’t smoke or drink. I often wondered if he ever envisaged a united Ireland that would embrace the Protestants of the North — and with that in mind, I put a question to the Aras when my grandmother, a Ballymena Presbyterian, reached the age of 100.
Tongue-in-cheek, I asked if the president would send her the traditional centenary cheque. Had there been some constitutional reason why he could not do so, I would have understood — but when the reply came back I was gobsmacked.
“Tom,” I was told, “The president only sends the cheques to members of his own party.”
I kid you not.
President Hillery always seemed to be smiling. A lovely man and one for whom I had great regard, I met him when he was a minister and later when he was president.
His presidency went through a rocky patch in 1979 when the country was awash with rumours that his marriage was in trouble, that he had a mistress and was going to resign. It was even said that the alleged mistress, a young French woman, had been turned away at the gates of the Aras by the Special Branch and put on the first plane back to Paris.
The rumours had reached fever pitch when editors were called up to the Aras, the expectation being that the president was going to resign. He told them he was aware of rumours that he was having romantic liaisons, in particular affairs with two women who worked for him. One, he pointed out, was at least 10 years older than he was. The other, a French girl, was also a friend of the family and occasionally visited them in the Aras. He said there was no truth in the rumours and he had decided to speak out as he had heard some English papers were going to run stories about them. He also denied that he was resigning.
There the saga ended — and I for one was glad he didn’t resign. In November 1983, my publisher, Seamus Cashman, and I were invited up to the Aras where we presented him with two specially bound copies of my first fox book, Run with the Wind, which had just been published. He signed copies of it for us and some of our friends. Our families, including my wife and four children, were also present and it was a pleasant occasion with crumbs on the carpet as we all sat around the president, chatting and enjoying tea and buns.
Before we left, I had to smile to myself as I studied the gold figures of Aesop’s foxes on one of the ceilings, thinking that while we were celebrating the adventures of my foxes, a real fox could be hunting the ducks in the president’s pond!
A reference to ducks illustrated the fact that the one-time minister for defence, Paddy Donegan, had a penchant for a colourful phrase. We all assumed that when the MV Claudia was intercepted off Co Waterford in 1973, its cargo of guns was for the IRA. But we wanted to hear the government say so. Instead, in an interview with me, he declared: “Well they certainly weren’t for shooting ducks!”
Three years later he came out with another phrase that was to cause a constitutional crisis.
I had interviewed Cearbhall O Dalaigh prior to his taking up office as president and found him to be, in the words of the late Supreme Court judge Donal Barrington, a man of “learning, courtesy and concern for justice”.
During the interview he referred to Dante, I think it was, and posed the question: “What age was he now when he died?” I had no idea what the answer was and perhaps because it was a rhetorical question, or seeing that I was stumped, he quickly continued, thus saving me much embarrassment for which I was very grateful.
When President O Dalaigh referred the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court to test its Constitutionality, Paddy Donegan famously called him “a thundering disgrace”, and shortly afterwards the president resigned.
Donegan owned the Monasterboice Inn near Drogheda, and my wife and I used to call there for food on our way back from Co Antrim.
On one occasion, we spied Paddy sitting on his own at a table in the restaurant sipping a glass of whiskey. I took the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with him. He laughed when I recalled his reference to the ducks but when it came to the way he had insulted the president, it was clear from his mumbled reply that he had no regrets.
I myself always felt the way the president had been treated was a disgrace — but that’s politics.
Charlie Haughey clawed his way back after the arms trial to become Taoiseach and while he never became president, I thought he always adopted a distinct presidential manner when he greeted people.
Then there was the famous occasion when he told the populace to tighten their belts while he himself, it later transpired, was living like a king, buying Charvet shirts in Paris at £300 a go.
In 1990, on the first day the Dail was being televised, Charlie wanted to be sure he was wearing the right colour shirt. Tim Morris’s company, Windmill Lane, had won the contract to design and install the system for televising both houses of the Oireachtas.
Responding to a call from the Taoiseach’s office, Tim went up to see him and was ushered in. Lying on one of the sofas, he recalls, were three shirts and three ties.
“What would you recommend I wear that would be suitable for television?” Charlie asked.
Tim started to explain that pin-stripes were inclined to strobe on TV, but Charlie cut across him, saying, “I don’t really need to know about that. Just tell me which one to wear.”
Tim chose a blue shirt and red tie and beat a hasty retreat. In the outer office, Charlie’s private secretary looked up from his desk and smiled, saying: “Tricky, these affairs of State!”
Charlie, of course, always got his way. Mick Murray, a soundman and colleague of mine at RTE, recalls that as part of a camera crew he went out to Kinsealy to record the Taoiseach’s greetings for Australia Day in 1979.
It was only two paragraphs, Mick recalls, but Charlie asked if they had an autocue, a device operated by a member of staff that would enable him read the words as he faced the camera. When informed they had not, he told them to get one and he would record the message in Government Buildings.
When Charlie left the room, Mick told his adviser, PJ Mara, that RTE only provided an autocue for the Pope and, anyway, it was only two paragraphs. This, he explained, was a reference to the fact that a priest had advised RTE that Pope John Paul II, being Polish, would need an autocue on his forthcoming visit as he was not accustomed to speaking English.
In any event, PJ must have passed the word on to Charlie, for when Mick was kneeling to sort out his cables in Government Buildings, a shadow fell across him. Looking up he saw Charlie, hand outstretched giving him his own version of a papal blessing.
Once again, Charlie had got his way — and his autocue.
Then, in typical fashion, he gave each of the crew a bottle of Hennessy brandy for Christmas.
‘Charlie told the population to tighten their belts — while he was living like a king, buying Charvet shirts at £300 a go...’