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Charles Haughey Quotes

Charles James Haughey was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach on three different occasions, 1979 to 1981, March 1982 to December 1982 and 1987 to 1992. He was also Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1987 to 1992, Leader of the Opposition from 1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987, Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1979 to 1992, Minister for Social Welfare and Minister for Health from 1977 to 1979, Minister for Finance from 1966 to 1970, Minister for Agriculture from 1964 to 1966, Minister for Justice from 1961 to 1964 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice from 1959 to 1961. He served as a Teachta Dála from 1957 to 1992.Haughey was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD in 1957 and was re-elected in every election until 1992, representing the Dublin North-East, Dublin Artane and Dublin North-Central constituencies.

Haughey is generally regarded as the most dominant Irish politician of his generation, as well as the most controversial. Upon entering government in the early 1960s, Haughey became the symbol of a new vanguard of Irish Ministers. As Taoiseach, he is credited by some economists as starting the positive transformation of the economy in the late 1980s. However, his career was also marked by several major scandals. Haughey was implicated in the Arms Crisis of 1970, which nearly destroyed his career. His political reputation revived, his tenure as Taoiseach was then damaged by the sensational GUBU Affair in 1982; his party leadership was challenged four times, each time unsuccessfully, earning Haughey the nickname "The Great Houdini". Revelations about his role in a phone tapping scandal forced him to resign as Taoiseach and retire from politics in 1992.

After Haughey's retirement from politics, further revelations of corruption, embezzlement, tax evasion and a 27-year extra-marital affair tarnished his already divisive reputation. He died of prostate cancer in 2006, at the age of eighty. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. September 1925 – 13. June 2006
Charles Haughey photo
Charles Haughey: 8   quotes 1   like

Famous Charles Haughey Quotes

“It was a bizarre happening, an unprecedented situation, a grotesque situation, an almost unbelievable mischance.”

Charles Haughey

T. Ryle Dwyer, "Charlie: The political biography of Charles Haughey" (1987), chapter 12.
Originally used at a press conference in 1982 to refer to an incident in which a wanted murderer was arrested in the house of the Attorney-General, but subsequently turned into "Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, unprecedented" and made a catchphrase. Sometimes rendered into the acronym "GUBU".

“I could instance a load of fuckers whose throats I'd cut and push over the nearest cliffs, but there's no percentage in that!”

Charles Haughey

The Flawed Chieftain http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/niall_stanage/2006/06/the_flawed_chieftain.html (The Guardian 'Comment is Free')
In an interview with Hot Press magazine

“He (Haughey) was a very promising minister in the '60s, but once he became leader all he was concerned with was staying leader. It was always about the cult of leadership. His sense of himself was much more important than any vision he had for the country. People say he discovered fiscal rectitude in '87, and people talk about his contribution to Anglo-Irish affairs, but really if you try and look for any consistency in his affairs after the late '70s you can't find it because it's just about him.”

Charles Haughey

Diarmaid Ferriter, "'Controversial' Taoiseach". Sunday Tribune. 28 November 2010.
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“Charles Haughey was undoubtedly a great statesman…By far the most gifted politician of his generation, he squandered his opportunities for greatness on luxuriant rhetoric and luxurious living.”

Charles Haughey

Fintan O'Toole, "A Life and Legacy". Irish Times, 14th June 2006.
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“You know, I have a theory about Charlie Haughey. If you give him enough rope, he'll hang you.”

Charles Haughey

BBC Ireland correspondent Leo Enright at the end of Haughey's premiership.
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“The best, the most skillful, the most devious and the most cunning.”

Charles Haughey

On Bertie Ahern, reported in Bertie Ahern http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9804/10/n.ireland.profiles/ahern/ahern.html, CNN World News (1998).

“He can only be defined by his contradictions: a patriot whose ultimate allegiance was not to Ireland but to the Cayman Islands; a preacher of family values who kept an expensive mistress; a lover of power who allowed himself to become a kept man; a product of the Catholic lower middle class who spent millions of pounds of other people's money in affecting the style of an Ascendancy gent; a man of the people who secretly sniggered at the people's credulity; a charmer who liked to cultivate an air of menace and warned his own bank that he could be a very troublesome adversary.”

Charles Haughey

Fintan O'Toole, "A Life and Legacy". Irish Times, 14th June 2006.
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“It's guarded by units of the British army and I can never come up to this border without experiencing deep feelings of anger and resentment.”

Charles Haughey

Ex-Irish Taoiseach Haughey dies http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3001775.stm (BBC News online)
In a television documentary in the 1980s.

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