An Irishman's Diary

Charlie Haughey and James Joyce had at least one thing in common. Joyce consciously filled his work with puzzles and mysteries, to keep the academics arguing about him long after his death and thereby ensure immortality. Haughey may not have planned it quite like that, but the result was the same. His legacy, including the long-awaited, multi-layered work-in-progress known as the Moriarty Report, will also keep scholars busy for many years to come.

We don't know whether, as Bertie Ahern suggested this week, the former Taoiseach would have enjoyed the coincidence of being buried on Bloomsday. But now and forever, he shares that distinction with "poor little Paddy Dignam", the man whose obsequies Leopold Bloom attended on June 16th, 1904. That was a "paltry funeral: coach and three carriages", Bloom noted, before concluding gloomily: "It's all the same. Pall-bearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death." Paltry as it was, Dignam's funeral did enjoy the dubious privilege of having a newspaper reporter there to record the names of mourners. A man called Hynes, he adds to the many indignities piled on Bloom by checking the latter's "Christian" name, even though everyone knows Bloom is Jewish. But Joyce also gives us a laugh at the journalist's expense, while illustrating the hazards of name-taking, a job that will be particularly demanding today in Donnycarney.

- And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was over there in the. . .

He looked around.

- Mackintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?

- McIntosh, Hynes said, scribbling, I don't know who he is. Is that his name?

- He moved away, looking about him.

- No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

Hynes was already gone, to report the attendance at the ceremony not only of a "Mr McIntosh" but also of a Mr "L. Boom". The weather is expected to remain fine for Mr Haughey's funeral. So at least Mr McIntosh is unlikely to make an appearance.

The Haughey era will be recalled as a blessed one for Irish writers, what with tax exemptions and the establishment of Aosdána. If Joyce had been alive still, he might have reviewed the middle part of his "silence, exile, and cunning" strategy. But being dead, he could only benefit from occasional help in securing his literary fame. Mr Haughey did his bit for the cause, even at the opening of the Financial Services Centre in 1987. "A new era is about to dawn," he said, quoting Bloom. "Ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future."

Interestingly, the quote is from the book's Nighttown episode. As David Norris later pointed out in a letter to this paper, Bloom was "hallucinating when he made the speech, his audience was a collection of whores and drunkards, the location was a brothel, and none of the prophesies came true". Despite the omens, the IFSC took off somehow and, whatever about being the New Bloomusalem, is now regarded as Mr Haughey's greatest achievement.

Indeed, with some of the wealth and self-confidence generated by the venture, it might be time to expand on a more tangible tribute to Joyce, also from before the boom.

The series of brass plaques on the footpaths where Leopold Bloom walked are undoubtedly popular with Dubliners. Of course the city's pavements are full of brass and iron tributes, to the work of Tonge and Taggart, Hammond Lane Foundry, and a wide range of other artists. But most of these are manhole covers, or otherwise provide access to underground utilities. So a series of brass plates offering access points to Joyce's masterpiece - once an underground feature itself - was a brilliant idea.

It's just that, given the extent of Bloom's perambulations, it now seems a very modest tribute. There are only 14 plaques, not even one for every episode of Ulysses. In those straitened times, there was probably a justified fear they would be stolen for scrap metal, and indeed it's a small miracle they were not. But so long as they remain limited to 14, like the Stations of the Cross, the plaques are yet another insult to their Jewish hero. Now that the country is awash with IFSC money, surely we could risk putting a few more down?

The question of a monument to Mr Haughey will also arise soon. And given that his legacy is an ambivalent one, I have an ambivalent suggestion. Namely that, when the tribunals are finally wrapped up, a section of Dublin Castle - perhaps the lower yard - should be turned into a kind of Zen garden, as a back-handed tribute to the many witnesses who have struggled there to recall details of their material lives.

It would have roughly the same proportions as the green area in Parnell Square, with which it would be linked by a signposted route. You wouldn't need signposts, in fact, because by then the route would be strewn with Joycean plaques. The main thing is that future Leopold Blooms could enjoy a relaxed stroll through the "heart of the Hibernian Metropolis": beginning at the Garden of Remembrance and ending, a mile or so later, in the Garden of Forgetting.