FORMER TAOISEACH Charles Haughey wrote a series of personal jottings before he died, saying that he had never broken his word in politics and never made a decision that was not motivated totally by the public good.
This was revealed yesterday by the late taoiseach’s son, Minister of State for Education and Enterprise Seán Haughey, at the presentation of his father’s private papers to Dublin City University (DCU).
Mr Haughey’s sister Eimear Mulhern and his brothers Ciarán and Conor Haughey were also present for the ceremony at DCU, accompanying their mother Maureen and the former taoiseach’s surviving siblings, Ms Maureen Haughey and Fr Eoghan Haughey.
The collection will be housed in the DCU library in an archival facility to be named after the former taoiseach. Contained in 350 boxes, it includes correspondence and papers from all periods of Charles Haughey’s career.
In observance of the standard 30-year rule, access to the papers will not be permitted until 2022– 30 years after Mr Haughey retired from public life in 1992.
The DCU Educational Trust, the fundraising arm of the university, has also announced the establishment of a memorial endowment to fund two Charles J Haughey Access Scholarships, which will support students attending DCU from the Northside Partnership area of northeast Dublin; and the Charles J Haughey Doctoral Fellowships in Law and Government, supporting post-graduate research.
A spokeswoman for DCU said the papers had been donated to the university as a gift by the Haughey family and no payment was involved. Any member of the public could contribute to the scholarship fund and there had been a number of contributions already but, in line with standard practice, their identities and the amount donated were private.
In a speech reviewing his late father’s political career, Seán Haughey said: “To dismiss his entire contribution to the political, social, economic and cultural life of this country, as some commentators have attempted to do, on the basis of selected aspects of his personal finances, is simply absurd.
“There are few areas of Irish life where his influence has not been apparent and it is our family’s hope that . . . these papers will be both the basis of, and the stimulus for . . . an objective assessment and appraisal of my father’s contribution to the building of modern Ireland.
“In the first instance, it is as a politician that many will remember my father. Historians will, no doubt, be interested in some of his handwritten musings about his own attitude to politics.
“He . . . noted that he ‘Never made a decision or took any action that was not motivated totally by the public good in so far as I could judge it.’ His motivation for wanting to be in power was to ‘be able to use it for the benefit of the people’.”
Mr Haughey revealed that former Fine Gael TD Alice Glenn wrote to his father after the 1987 general election: “I share your pride in this small but proud nation and I know that we are down to our Last Hero and are all depending on you.”
Expressing his thanks to the Haughey family, DCU president Ferdinand von Prondzynski said: “What we are launching here today is . . . an unparalleled archive of political-historical material of the kind that, I suspect, does not exist anywhere else in Ireland. The significance of this archive for historical purposes, for political purposes, is beyond description.”
Prof Eunan O’Halpin, of Trinity College Dublin, said the collection would be important, not just for students of political history, “but for social historians and for historians of Irish life”.
Others in attendance included the former taoiseach’s nephew Niall Haughey; former Haughey adviser and current Minister of State for Finance Martin Mansergh; former top civil servant Pádraig Ó hUiginn; Mr Haughey’s early business partner Harry Boland; and trade unionist Séamus Puirsíl.