Charlie Haughey and Garret FitzGerald had precious little in common apart from a sense of their own destiny. FitzGerald began saving his letters at the age of six, assuming that future historians would find them valuable. Haughey was once asked to define “the Celtic Tradition” and replied, “Croke Park, Fianna Fáil and myself”.
Vignettes such as these provide some welcome light relief in Eoin O’Malley’s perceptive, fair-minded but overly compressed study of how Haughey and FitzGerald embodied the Republic’s 1980s ideological divide. For the most part, this is an ultra-serious performance review, assessing their shared impact on social issues, economic development and the Troubles.
Charlie Vs Garret may be a familiar story, but O’Malley breathes new life into it by drawing on his interviews with the two late taoisigh, as well as around 100 people who knew them.
The book’s running theme is how Charlie and Garret became constant thorns in each other’s side. “FitzGerald was obsessed with Haughey,” O’Malley claims, noting how Fine Gael commissioned a psychologists’ report that suggested the FF leader was chronically indecisive. Haughey had more respect for his opponent than he let on, privately reacting to a FitzGerald tax credit proposal with the lament: “I should have thought of that.”
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The author is a Dublin City University political scientist and son of Des O’Malley, Haughey’s bitter Fianna Fáil critic turned Progressive Democrats coalition partner. Despite this background, he remains scrupulously balanced and even accuses his father of “naivety” during a failed leadership heave.
O’Malley’s report card contains other harsh judgments too, dubbing FitzGerald a vain, hopelessly ill-focused “intellectual snob” and Haughey a hypocrite who “normalised crony capitalism” by “skimming off the top”. He also praises them for being “progressive modernisers” at heart with complementary strengths, FitzGerald an influencer and Haughey a pragmatist. Skilfully evoking the bleakness of pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland, he concludes that after multiple false starts they eventually guided us towards a happier era.
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At 246 pages, Charlie Vs Garret is too short to do its subject full justice, with topics such as the duo’s television debates receiving just a few lines. Even so, O’Malley deserves great credit for turning this well-worn material into an original, provocative thesis. Haughey and FitzGerald spent over a decade trying to drag each other down – but perhaps the ultimate winner from their bad-tempered duel was Ireland itself.
