Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy

by T. Ryle Dwyer

  Over the years Charlie had complained more than once about the unreliability of the media in general and the Evening Herald in particular, and this must have been one of the most glaring pieces of irresponsible journalism. Far from starting his budget address early, Charlie was not even in the Dáil. He was in hospital.

  Lynch told a stunned gathering that the Minister for Finance had been hospitalised that morning following an accident. As a result the Taoiseach read the budget address himself.

  Charlie’s injuries resulted from a fall from a horse, but contrary rumours began circulating almost immediately. The garda commissioner informed Peter Berry, the secretary of the Department of Justice, that ‘a strange rumour was circulating in North County Dublin that Mr Haughey’s accident occurred on a licensed premises on the previous night.’ Berry passed on the information to the Taoiseach, who ‘was emphatic’ that there should be no garda inquiries into the matter.

  ‘Within a couple of days, there were all sorts of rumours in golf clubs, in political circles, etc., as to how the accident occurred with various husbands, fathers, brothers or lovers having struck the blow in any one of dozens of pubs around Dublin’, according to Berry.

  One unfounded rumour that was later published suggested that Haughey was beaten close to death by the father and brother of a young woman after they supposedly caught him in bed with her, upstairs in the Grasshopper Inn in Clonee, Co. Meath.

  Charlie had tried to dismount by hoisting himself out of the saddle by grabbing the guttering above the stable entrance, but it gave way with a large crack, which spooked the horse. Haughey was thrown heavily to the ground, receiving serious injuries that required hospitalisation. The rumours were so persistent that Charlie took the unusual step of having one of his stable hands talk to the press about having witnessed the riding accident.

  By then, however, rumours of Charlie’s other activities were already rampant and the country found itself in the midst of the arms crisis, which led to his dismissal as Minister for Finance on 6 May 1970.

  THE ARMS CRISIS

  At about three o’clock in the morning of 6 May 1970 Jack Lynch issued a statement to the press. He announced that he had ‘requested the resignation of members of the government, Mr Neil T. Blaney, Minister for Agriculture, and Mr C. J. Haughey, Minister for Finance, because I am satisfied that they do not subscribe fully to government policy in relation to the present situation in the six counties as stated by me at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in January last.’ On learning of the Taoiseach’s decision, Kevin Boland resigned as Minister for Local Government and Social Welfare in protest, and Paudge Brennan, his parliamentary secretary did likewise. The country was suddenly awash with rumours that the Taoiseach had discovered plans for a coup d’etat.

  It was not until hours later that Lynch explained to the Dáil that he had acted because security forces had informed him ‘about an alleged attempt to unlawfully import arms from the continent’. As these reports involved the two cabinet ministers, he said he asked them to resign on the basis ‘that not even the slightest suspicion should attach to any member of the government in a matter of this nature’.

  To understand the crisis one must go back to events surrounding serious violence which erupted in Northern Ireland following the Apprentice Boys Parade in Derry City on 12 August 1969. The parade was attacked by Nationalist protesters. The police, supported by Unionist thugs, then besieged the Nationalist area. What became known as the Battle of the Bogside had begun and quickly spread to other Nationalist areas of Northern Ireland, which seemed on the brink of a full-scale civil war.

  Amid the escalating violence the cabinet met in Dublin. Lynch had a draft address that he intended to deliver live on television that evening. Several members of the cabinet objected that it was too weak in the circumstances. Charlie, Blaney, and Boland, together with Jim Gibbons, Brian Lenihan and Seán Flanagan all called for something stronger. A new speech was prepared at the cabinet meeting.

  ‘The Stormont government evidently is no longer in control of the situation, which is the inevitable outcome of policies pursued for decades by them,’ Lynch told the nation that evening. ‘The Government of Ireland can no longer stand by’.

  The statement had an electrifying impact on the situation in the north. Besieged Nationalists concluded the Republic was going to intervene militarily, and the Unionist population – blinded by an irrational fear of the south – reacted hysterically. The Dublin government had no intention of invading.

  Even Kevin Boland, one of the cabinet’s most outspoken proponents of assisting northern Nationalists, believed it would be disastrous for the Irish army to become involved. ‘Places contiguous to the border could obviously be assisted effectively,’ he contended, ‘but to do so would mean the wholesale slaughter of Nationalists (or Catholics) in other areas where there was no defence available. I feel reasonably certain that the others also saw this and that none of them visualised an actual incursion.’

  Faced with the irrational frenzy of the heavily armed Unionist community, northern Nationalists were extremely vulnerable. They established defence committees and appealed to Dublin for arms to protect themselves.

  Dublin reacted in a number of ways. It launched a propaganda campaign to enlist international sympathy for the Nationalist position, but there was little the government could do in a tangible way. ‘There was a feeling among the government, and among the community as a whole, that we could not do a great deal deal to help the people of the north,’ Charlie explained. ‘We knew that a lot of people were suffering very severe hardship and distress and the government decided to be generous in coming to their aid. I was appointed as the person to see that this aid was given as freely and generously as possible.’

  ‘There was no sum of money specified,’ he continued. ‘I was instructed by the government to make money available on a generous scale to whatever extent we required.’ He was given virtual carte blanche to help the Nationalists. ‘I have never seen a government decision that was drafted in such wide terms,’ Charles H. Murray, the secretary of the Department of Finance, said afterwards.

  On 20 August 1969 Peter Berry, the secretary of the Department of Justice, reported that an unidentified cabinet minister had recently told a prominent member of the IRA that the authorities would not interfere with IRA operations planned for Northern Ireland, if the IRA called off all its activities within the twenty-six counties.

  ‘That could have been me,’ Charlie told the cabinet. ‘I was asked to see someone casually and it transpired to be this person. There was nothing to it, it was entirely casual.’

  Berry ‘was completely reassured’. Charlie had taken a strong stand against the IRA as Minister for Justice at the beginning of the decade and it seemed inconceivable that he would become involved with them now, but the security people were not reassured. ‘They repeated that their sources had proved reliable in the past’, Berry noted.

  Capt. James J. Kelly happened to be on a visit to in Derry at the time. On returning to Dublin he wrote a report of his impressions of events for his commanding officer, Col Michael Hefferon, the director of military intelligence. Hefferon welcomed this report from Capt. Kelly, an officer with 20 years’ army experience, with the last ten years in G2, military intelligence. At the time even G2 had been caught unawares by the ferocity of events in the north.

  ‘I was very glad of any information,’ Col Hefferon explained. ‘I had to run around and try to find out the people that would give me the most because you had a whole lot of rumours going which had no foundation to them.’ He ordered Kelly to maintain his northern contacts. ‘It is now necessary to harness all opinion in the state in a concerted drive towards achieving the aim of unification,’ Capt. Kelly wrote in his report of 23 August 1969. ‘This means accepting the possibility of armed action of some sort, as the ultimate solution.’ He added that ‘if civil war embracing the area was to result because of unwillingness to accept that war is the continuation of politic
s by other means, it would be a far greater evil for the Irish nation.’

  Col Hefferon was anxious for a first hand report of events in the north, so Capt. Kelly was sent across the border again the following month. This time he accompanied Séamus Brady, a journalist working on the government’s propaganda campaign. The people that they met were clamouring for arms to defend themselves, as they felt virtually defenceless against armed Unionist thugs.

  Later Haughey invited Col Hefferon to Kinsealy, along with his adjutant, Capt. Kelly. Charlie was looking for advice in order to establish a committee of reputable individuals to oversee the distribution of financial relief in Northern Ireland. Capt. Kelly briefed him on the situation there.

  He explained that he was due to meet between fifteen and twenty representatives from the various Defence Committees at a hotel in Bailieboro, Co. Cavan, on the weekend of 4 October. He said he needed money to cover his expenses, and Haughey instructed the Department of Finance to provide him with £500.

  The captain’s activities had already aroused the suspicion of the garda special branch, which was disturbed that he had been meeting with known members of the IRA. Berry was actually in hospital for tests when he learned that the captain was due to meet with the IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding and other prominent members in Bailieboro, Co. Cavan. Unable to contact either the Minister for Justice or the Taoiseach, Berry telephoned Charlie, who promptly called to the hospital.

  ‘I told him of Capt. Kelly’s goings on and of the visit planned for Bailieboro,’ Berry noted. ‘He did not seem unduly perturbed about Capt. Kelly but was quite inquisitive about what I knew of Goulding. I felt reassured.’

  Berry had no idea Charlie had provided money to cover the expenses of the Bailieboro meeting, and Charlie made no effort to enlighten him. This meeting was the genesis of the arms crisis itself. Berry had confided in Charlie, but the latter had not reciprocated.

  At the Bailieboro meeting a plan was hatched to provide northern Republicans with guns. Capt. Kelly noted in his report, however, that this was not likely to be enough. ‘The defensive aspect of operations is genuinely stressed,’ he wrote on 6 October 1969, ‘but there is a definite feeling, that in the last analysis, the Defence Forces will have to come to the rescue.’

  Haughey did not enlighten Berry who was still in hospital when he learned what happened at Bailieboro. He was again unable to contact the Justice minister Michael Moran, who had a serious drink problem. He therefore contacted Lynch, who called at the hospital on the morning of 18 October, as Berry was undergoing tests.

  ‘I told him of Capt. Kelly’s prominent part in the Bailieboro meeting with known members of the IRA, of his possession of a wad of money, of his standing drinks and of the sum of money – £50,000 – that would be available for the purchase of arms,’ Berry noted. Lynch later denied Berry’s account, but this was apparently one of those occasions on which he was suffering from his infamous forgetfulness. He actually told Gibbons about Berry’s report, and the Minister for Defence, in turn, questioned Col Hefferon, but that was apparently the end of the matter. When this information came out a decade later Gibbons stated that as of ‘October-November 1969‚’ he informed the Taoiseach, ‘that there were questionable activities on the part of certain members of the government making contact with people they should not make contact with.’ This was not a great secret at the time. The United Irishman, the mouthpiece for the IRA, accused Charlie and Blaney of promising help to Nationalists in order to undermine the standing of the IRA north of the border. Some people later contended that the two politicians were responsible for the split that led to the establishment of the Provisional IRA.

  Despite Berry’s warning, Charlie turned to Capt. Kelly for advice and help in the coming weeks. ‘I had no hesitation in receiving assistance from Capt. Kelly in briefing me on the situation in the north of Ireland and letting me know who the different groups were and all that sort of thing,’ Haughey explained.

  Capt. Kelly’s suggested the three northern nationalists who were selected to administer the government’s financial contributions following the Bailieboro meeting. A bank account under their joint control was opened in Clones, and Haughey personally telephoned the secretary general of the Irish Red Cross to deposit £5,000 in the account.

  Thereafter Haughey’s personal secretary, Anthony Fagan, would transfer money to the Red Cross with instructions to forward it to the Clones account. The Irish Red Cross was used to launder the money.

  Whenever Haughey wanted information or to pass on a message about the north, he would call on the captain. ‘Get Kelly to do it,’ he would tell Fagan.

  When money was needed, Capt. Kelly would go to Fagan, who would forward a note: ‘Minister, Kelly wants another £3,500 from the Bank a/c in the usual way. Is this OK please?’

  Haughey would then simply write ‘OK’ on the note. A few times he did balk temporarily. ‘This cannot go on for ever’, he grumbled. But each time he authorised the payments after discussing them with Capt. Kelly.

  The minister to whom Capt. Kelly was closest was Neil Blaney, whom he met just about every week.

  There were grounds for believing the conspiracy was much more serious than trying to import arms illegally. Capt. Kelly essentially suggested in his report of 23 August that in order to end partition the state should face the fact that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means.’ In his report of the Bailieboro meeting he noted that the northern Republicans were looking for arms for defensive purposes ‘but there is a definite feeling, in the last analysis, the defence forces will have to come to the rescue.’ The Minister for Defence could authorise the importation of weapons, but no members of the government, not even the whole cabinet, had the right to involve the country in war. Taken to its logical conclusion, this amounted to a conspiracy to subvert the constitution by involving the country in war, contrary to Article 28 of the constitution, which stipulates that ‘the state shall not participate in any war save with the assent of Dáil Éireann.’

  Kelly sent his reports to Hefferon and they were forwarded to Gibbons. Having been warned by Peter Berry, Lynch questioned Gibbons about Capt. Kelly’s activities. If Lynch did not know what was happening, it was because he chose to turn a blind eye. His behaviour, which amounted to disregarding his obligation to uphold and implement the constitution, was both reckless and irresponsible. Of course, he publicly avowed a policy of peaceful intent towards the north, but he seemed prepared to tolerate conflicting views on this vital issue within his cabinet. For instance, Blaney seemed intent on going to war over the north, even though Lynch had been emphasising that government wished to pursue peaceful means. Blaney delivered a speech in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, on 8 December 1969, at celebration commemorating his twenty-one years in the Dáil. ‘The ideal way of ending partition is by peaceful means, but no one has a right to assert that force is irrevocably out,’ he said. ‘The Fianna Fáil party has never taken a decision to rule out the use of force, if the circumstances in the six counties so demand.’

  This was a carefully prepared speech that Blaney took the unusual step of reading, and circulating to the press. It was a challenge to Lynch, but the Taoiseach behaved as if there was no challenge at all.

  ‘While Mr Blaney’s feelings on the partition issue are very deeply felt, and he occasionally finds it difficult not to give public expression to them, he knows and endorses government policy on this issue, as he did in his speech in Letterkenny,’ Lynch said. Was Lynch saying that the Blaney’s speech reflected government policy?

  In the last week of December 1969 there was a curious incident following the arrest of some Derrymen with weapons near the border. Berry was told that the Taoiseach wanted ‘to throw the book’ at those arrested, so charges were preferred against them, much to Charlie’s annoyance.

  ‘Twenty-four hours later Mr Haughey was on to me furiously inquiring who had given the gardaí the stupid direction to arrest the men,’ Berry wrote. ‘I told him that
the decision came from the very top.’

  If the men recognised the court, Berry said the charges would be thrown out, otherwise they would be committed for contempt. Charlie remained furious. ‘His language,’ according to Berry, ‘was not the usual kind usually heard in church. He said that he would ensure that there would be no contempt.’

  At the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis on 17 January 1970 Blaney appeared to orchestrate an overt challenge to Lynch’s leadership. It was the biggest ard fheis in the party’s history, because it was the first one held over a weekend, rather than in midweek.

  Blaney’s supporters made the first four speeches in the debate on the Taoiseach’s department. They eulogised Blaney. Then Kevin Boland waded in with a speech denouncing partition. This was a bald attack on Lynch. ‘The Taoiseach knew exactly what I was doing,’ Boland later wrote. ‘I was castigating him in public.’

  Lynch confronted this challenge as he departed from his prepared script to declare a policy of peaceful intent in his presidential address to the party. ‘If anybody wants this policy to change, this is the place to do it and now is the time,’ he said throwing down the gauntlet. ‘If people want this traditional Fianna Fáil policy to be pursued by me as leader of the government and the party, now is the time to say it.’

  Blaney and Boland were routed. Lynch received a tumultuous ovation. At the end he received a prolonged standing ovation from the gathering as they chanted, ‘We back Jack.’ But Lynch did nothing about Capt. Kelly’s efforts in relation to procuring arms.

  As a result of all of this Berry concluded that Lynch did not wish to be informed so that he could turn a blind eye to the planned gun-running. This assessment – whether right or wrong – was shared by more than one member of the cabinet. Kevin Boland concluded, for instance, that the Taoiseach privately approved.