Charles J. Haughey

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Charles Haughey (1967)

Charles James Haughey ( Irish : Cathal Séamas Ó hEochaidh , born September 16, 1925 in Castlebar , † June 13, 2006 in Kinsealy ) was an Irish politician for the Fianna Fáil party and was Irish Prime Minister three times : from 1979 to 1981, 1982 and from 1987 to 1992.

He was buried in St Fintan's Cemetery on June 16, 2006 .

Early youth

Charles Haughey was born in Castlebar, County Mayo to a family with a Republican background. His father was an officer in the IRA but later began an officer career in the Irish regular army . His father's serious illness forced him to leave the army and the family moved to Dublin . Haughey studied there and qualified as an accountant, later he began studying law and became a lawyer.

Political career

Charles Haughey was considered to be one of the politicians with the most pronounced instinct for survival. Despite several setbacks, he was able to move into the Dáil Éireann , the lower house of the Irish Parliament, for the first time in 1957 . There he represented the Fianna Fáil party, which he belonged to the end of his career. His first major job, the position of State Secretary for the Ministry of Justice, was offered to him in 1960 by his political mentor Seán Lemass , who was also his father-in-law. Haughey had married his daughter Maureen in 1951. He became Minister of Justice himself the following year and held this position with some success, initiating a variety of legislative reforms. He was unable to continue this balance sheet in the next office, that of Argar Minister.

Arms crisis

Haughey had ambitions for the office of prime minister early on; he saw his chance come when Seán Lemass stepped down from the office of Taoiseach in 1966 . Instead, however, the party nominated Jack Lynch , and Haughey bitterly had to be content with the office of finance minister. There he demonstrated efficiency in his administration, based on his professional background. His involvement in the arms crisis was to cost him the office. When riots flared up in Northern Ireland in 1969/1970, Haughey and Agriculture Minister Neil Blaney were accused of embezzling aid funds for needy Catholics in Ulster and instead diverting them to the IRA. In May 1970 Prime Minister Lynch dismissed both ministers. Haughey did not give up his career, but spent the years until 1977 in political exile in the province. Then he made a remarkable comeback: Fianna Fáil returned to government after years of opposition. Haughey had meanwhile built a strong following with pro-Republican rhetoric, and Lynch was forced to accept him back into the ranks of ministers. When Lynch stepped down from Prime Minister in 1979, Haughey took his chance. He won the highly competitive election of the successor against his rival George Colley .

Change of power and political inheritance

The 1980s in Ireland were marked by a deep economic crisis. Since then, Haughey's political fortunes have failed, and his time as head of government was not crowned with successes: public spending reached record highs and taxes rose. In 1982, the opposing Fine Gael won the general election. Haughey was later to return to the Prime Minister's office two more times, but the economic upswing was a long time coming. His years in office were overshadowed by internal party disputes, allegations of accepting private donations and taking advantage. Revelations of extramarital relationships did the rest to demolish his reputation.

Hardly any other personality divides opinion in Ireland as much as Charles Haughey. For his critics, he was responsible for corruption allegations that undermined the reputation of Ireland's politics in general, and the reputation of the Fianna Fáil in particular. For his advocates, "Charlie" was a reformer and pioneer for Ireland's rise to the Celtic Tiger . He died of cancer on June 13, 2006 at his home in Kinsealy, County Dublin .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ John Henry Whyte: Ireland, 1966-82 . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (eds.): The course of Irish history . Mercier Press, Cork, 17th ed. 1987, ISBN 0-85342-715-1 , pp. 342-361, here p. 356.
  2. ^ John Henry Whyte: Ireland, 1966-82 . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (eds.): The course of Irish history . Mercier Press, Cork, 17th ed. 1987, pp. 342-361, here p. 357.
  3. ^ John Henry Whyte: Ireland, 1966-82 . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (eds.): The course of Irish history . Mercier Press, Cork, 17th ed. 1987, pp. 342-361, here p. 358.
  4. ^ John Henry Whyte: Ireland, 1966-82 . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (eds.): The course of Irish history . Mercier Press, Cork, 17th ed. 1987, pp. 342-361, here p. 359.