Arise and follow

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I've just finished (very belatedly, it was a Christmas present) RTE's excellent four part series "Haughey" following the life and career of "the Boss". I was a bit worried it wouldn't work in our DVD player/NTSC TV but it was fine and the picture/sound was excellent. Naturally given the subject a fourteen part series wouldn't be enough but there was quite enough to be getting on with.

The programme is very well made but what distinguishes it is the cast of characters that appear on it. P.J. Mara is predictably memorable but valuable detail is provided by his private secretary in the 80s. Padraig Flynn's sheer drive first to protect Haughey and then to oust him is almost shocking. Haughey's children Conor, Eimear and Sean all appear, and perhaps this is why the Celtic Helicopters affair didn't appear that I recall, and that his mistress Terry Keane was not only a gossip columnist but the wife of the Chief Justice. Dermot Desmond says he'd give him another million if Haughey asked him.

It wouldn't be complete without some Scrap Saturday - in fact some of the tiresome flashbacks and repetition would have been better being replaced by more of that, like the one where "Eamon Dunphy" and "David Hanly" debate Charlie and where he got his money from years before the mainstream media found the bottle to do so openly.

The usual suspects appear - Reynolds, McCreevy, O'Malley, Tony Gregory and his old "flawed pedigree" enemy, Fitzer (happy 80th birthday by the way - it was only a couple of years ago I saw him charm the pants off UCC students a quarter his age after the Philosoph's Nice Treaty debate.)

I wonder will CBC have the bottle to be as frank when it comes time to make "Mulroney", and will the subject matter be much the same, given Karlheinz Schreiber's latest allegations?

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