IN 1982 a reporter from Business & Finance went to interview Des Traynor, then managing director of Guinness & Mahon. Coffee and biscuits were produced in the oak-panelled boardroom in the College Green bank.
"Before we start," Traynor said, "we'll lay down two ground rules. The first is, we see the article before you print it."
The reporter said the second ground rule was quite academic since the first was unacceptable. They finished the coffee and the reporter prepared to leave, empty-handed.
"As a matter of curiosity," he said to Traynor, "what was the second rule?" "We don't talk about the Cayman Islands," said Traynor.
Though Traynor's friendship with Charlie Haughey brought him a measure of influence, what business people valued most in Traynor, the accountant turned banker, was his sheer deal-making skills.
A ferocious takeover battle for the sleepy New Ireland Assurance Company by Joe Moore's PMPA was seen off when Guinness & Mahon and Traynor found L'Union des Assurances de Paris-Vie willing to take a 33 per cent stake in the company. Traynor joined the board.
In the early 1970s Tom Roche's Roadstone attempted a takeover of Cement Ltd. The Cement board turned to Guinness & Mahon - and Traynor. Eventually, a merger was agreed. Traynor joined the board.
Traynor did his articles with Haughey Boland, the accountancy firm established by Charlie Haughey and Harry Boland.
Traynor was close to a northside clique which included Haughey, solicitors Pat O'Connor and Liam McGonagle, car dealers Denis Mahony and Brian Dennis, property developer John Byrne, architect Sam Stephenson, quantity surveyor Des McGreevy, oil company executive Ken O'Reilly-Hyland and Aer Lingus chief executive Michael Dargan.
Another northside clique, loosely based around Howth Yacht Club, brought Traynor into banking. These included the Gore-Grimes brothers, John and Anthony. John was a noted yachtsman, given to planning elaborate - and often dangerous voyages which he recorded in elegant prose and stunning photography. He was the link to Jonathan Guinness, then chairman of Guinness & Mahon.
With the north Dublin twang that never left him, Traynor was not the most obvious person to take over the rather grand bank in College Green. Guinness & Mahon was founded in 1836 by Robert Rundell Guinness and John Ross Mahon.
The bank's name appears as agent in the prospectus for the first National Loan issued in 1923. But when Traynor joined, what distinguished Guinness & Mahon was not so much tradition as the fact that it was the only Irish bank which routinely took a shareholding in the businesses it was supporting.
Other banks would only lend money, Guinness & Mahon would share the risk. It was perfect for Traynor.
Guinness & Mahon had about 500 current accounts, mainly wealthy individuals. Charlie Haughey would become the bank's best-known customer.
Traynor set up the Cayman Islands operation, which was independent of Guinness & Mahon's parent company in London, Guinness Peat Group. Traynor had a more or less free hand because of endless board-room bickering at Guinness Peat, which left the Dublin subsidiary to run itself. This, however, was about to change.
Some of Guinness & Mahon's equity investments became badly unstuck, notably the Nicholt department store group. The Bank of Yokohama took control of Guinness Peat in London and the new management began to take a keen interest in its Dublin subsidiary, and in particular its Cayman Islands operation.
Traynor resented the head office interference - as he saw it - and left the bank in 1986. He became chairman of CRH in 1987. The Bank of Yokohama installed Michael Murphy, a former managing director of Allied Irish Investment Bank, as the new chairman of Guinness & Mahon with a remit to run a more conventional bank.
Traynor subsequently emerged into the limelight only in 1992, when he confirmed publicly that he was the Irish businessman who had made an interest-free loan to Brian Burke, the former premier of Western Australia, who was facing charges of illegal political fund-raising.
He died of cancer in 1994. In an appreciation published in The Irish Times, the former chief executive of CRH, Jim Culliton, wrote: "Des was the person you went to if you were in trouble, and he took great pride in helping you resolve your difficulties."
Of nobody was that truer that Charlie Haughey.