Specifically, CJH told VB that he could borrow against his palatial home. VB said this made no sense, since the banks would be looking for interest and repayments. CJH said “no”, VB didn’t believe him. As we now know, CJH was right – the bank, once he was in office, didn’t look for repayments. This was before he got all that money from Ben Dunne.

Browne recounts all this on his radio show, where you can also find a clip from Scrap Saturday, albeit not quite the best one to illustrate the essential cute hoor/Boss CJH - rather it’s a pisstake of his penchant to claim ancestry everywhere in Ireland and beyond.

Go here and choose the Tuesday 13th the show, about 56min 30sec in.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/tonightwithvincentbrowne/1095455.html

Ah. Audio, then?

Wasn’t he Irish as well, the “cute hoor” of New York?

It was a radio show.

Sigh. Link to video, anyone?

Haughey’s defenders will say that “he did the state some service”. His detractors will want to emphasise the taint of corruption and abuse of power associated with his governments. There’s truth in both propositions. He was exceptionally talented and took some daring policy initiatives that had lasting benefits. While he was an opportunistic adventurer and consummate populist he did not try to remake Irish democracy on personalistic lines in the way Berlusconi attempted in Italy.

Fianna Fáil was, and still is, the dominant party in the system and it owes its dominance to the way it used a political strategy/discourse based on nationalism and populism to become a cross-class political alliance of urban and rural, centre and periphery. It managed to appear to be part of the Establishment while remaining outside of it.

Haughey himself embodied all these contradictions in extremis. He was a sophisticated European statesman of considerable personal wealth and a devoted patron of the arts. He was also a gutty populist and beloved of the north Dublin working class. He could be extremely sentimental but also ruthless and unforgiving.

Within the broad culture of Fianna Fáil, Haughey and his associated hedonism nevertheless represented a decisive break with the moral puritanism and personal rectitude of the deValera era. The Lynch-Colley-O’Malley element, who regarded Haughey as a complete upstart, probably on snobbish class grounds, embodied the more “traditional” values of the party’s founders.

Haughey, as befitting such a polarising personality, was largely responsible for the fractious and faction-ridden state of the party for over a generation, from the retirement of Lemass to the start of the leadership of the emollient Bertie Ahern. Since 1994 the party has never been so much at peace with itself and it is perhaps from that date that the legacy and influence of Charles J. Haughey began to fade from the political culture.

Sure, he’s trimming, but it’s about time one of ours got some back. Look, the powers that be have it out for us—you know we couldn’t get ahead playing by the rules, when the rules are stacked against us. So what if he takes a bit on the side—it’s one in the eye for the man.

I watched this play out year after year with Marion Barry in DC. No matter how corrupt he was, and no matter how much damage he was actually doing to the millions of black people who lived in DC (by creating a dysfunctional city, and by perpetuating the worst stereotypes), the people I talked with always forgave him. They were sure the man was out to get him, that he was set up, that voting for MB was showing the white establishment that black people wouldn’t be kept down.

I think the Irish have a tendency to play the underdog in this way as well. Not a healthy tendency, esp. when it means you tolerate parasites in your midst.

Oh—and for extra points: I am distantly related to Haughey, through my grandmother. She always pronounced it as a monosyllable, “hoy”.

How about “Irish-Anglo”?

the important thing about “cute” is that it is (almost?) always used with “hoor”

I wouldn’t say that. “He’s very cute” or “He’s a cute one” and the like are very common.

Yeah, his preference for the Plain People of Ireland over the Brits was why he lived like a country squire in a Georgian mansion. C’mon diarmid, you can do better.