If any woman in Ireland deserves to be described as feisty, it is Terry Keane. Talking about her life and gloriously coloured times for an hour on RTE television last night, she was feistiness incarnate.
There was just one moment, when the thought that strangers might imagine she would have had an abortion, that Ms Keane's poise withered, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. The camera held on her for as long as was permissible and then, lest it seem as invasive as a gossip columnist's snippet, veered away until she regained her composure and made it quite clear that this had never happened.
As a piece of television, Terry, made by Tyrone Productions, the company run by John McColgan and Moya Doherty, was as arresting or irritating, as fascinating or tawdry, as insightful or irrelevant - all depending on the viewer's attitude - as the late Diana, Princess of Wales's interview for the BBC's Panorama in November 1995. Instead of the royal "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded", Ms Keane commented on a still more cluttered scenario in which she and Mr Haughey were - and still are - both married.
"If Maureen Haughey was hurt," Ms Keane observed of her announcement on the Late, Late Show last year that she and Charles Haughey had been lovers for the preceding 27 years, "I'm sorry about that, but I'm sure she was hurt a long time ago. I'm sure it didn't come as a surprise." Nor, in truth, did anything much that was said during the interview. The affair, after all, was common knowledge for more than two decades.
By now, there are no revelations left, only insights such as the remark that she and Mr Haughey "talked about politics 50 per cent of the time. He told me I was very politically astute and had good judgment". Ms Keane understandably agreed with this perception, commenting of her erstwhile lover that "some of the mistakes he made, I pointed out before he made them".
Here occurred one of the intermittent moments when the programme opted to cut across her own commentary and include a third-party observation. In this instance, Irish Times columnist Dick Walsh was permitted to remark he was not at all sure Ms Keane had exerted "anything like the amount of influence in national politics that she'd like everyone else to believe". But no one was denying the amount of influence she held over Mr Haughey.
"Terry was more dominant and domineering than him," explained Emily O'Reilly, while Eamon Dunphy concurred that in their relationship "she was the boss, no doubt about that". Journalist Emily O'Reilly suggested the relationship eventually petered out because Mr Haughey was long departed from government, a fallen idol and "effectively confined to quarters in Kinsealy". A touch harshly perhaps, Ms O'Reilly added that "without wishing to be ageist, they were both getting on a bit".
Ms Keane's explanation was more poignant. Last spring, she said, Mr Haughey told her over lunch that he wished to return photographs and mementoes of their time together because he was "trying to get his life in order".
"I was very taken aback, staggered by this and profoundly upset."
Shortly afterwards, faced with the imminent publication of a book threatening to give details of her affair with Mr Haughey, she appeared on the Late, Late Show and gave her side of the story. As she said early in the programme, "Like Saint Augustine, I believe my real life has begun since my confession."
Ms Keane's loyal and long-term friend, Noelle Campbell Sharpe then went on to exclaim that the affair and its ending had "all the makings of a Greek tragedy". But the woman herself was having none of this sad talk. Feisty to the last, she declared: "I don't have any regrets that the relationship is over. I look back on it with great joy and I look forward to a new future without him."