(b. Castlebar, Co. Mayo, 16 Sept. 1925) Irish; Taoiseach (premier) 1979 – 81, 1982, 1987 – 92 The son of an officer in the Irish army, Haughey's family roots were in northern Irish republicanism. In 1951 he married a daughter of Sean Lemass, then deputy premier and later Taoiseach, 1959 – 66. He was elected to the Dáil in 1957, and achieved ministerial rank in 1961, serving in all subsequent Fianna Fáil governments until his dismissal by Jack Lynch in May 1970 over suspected complicity in an attempt to import arms for the IRA using government money. In a celebrated trial subsequently, Haughey was acquitted. He became wealthy through a development land deal, whose details remained obscure.

He was a highly energetic and effective minister in a succession of posts and was noted for his encouragement of cultural life. His three periods as Taoiseach were marked by persistent criticism and opposition, particularly from within his own party, and from leading journalists. He was widely respected for his ability but also widely distrusted as a shifty and unprincipled self-aggrandizer. His second (February to December) 1982 government was especially scandal ridden, particularly concerning his alleged authorizing of the tapping of journalists' phones.

As Taoiseach Haughey's abilities were much consumed by the problems of political survival and the worsting of opponents within his own party (some of whom broke away to form the Progressive Democrat Party). His capacity to survive became legendary; yet he failed in five successive elections to lead his party to victory with a working majority, and in 1989 had to form Fianna Fáil's first ever coalition government.

In opposition, and at election times, Haughey was disposed to revert to a populist republicanism, but in office he initiated with Mrs Thatcher a slow rapprochement with Britain in co-operative management of the Northern Irish crisis. Theirs, in 1980, was the decision to explore jointly "the totality of relationships in these islands". He at first opposed the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, but toned down his criticism on observing its popularity in the Republic, and in office from 1987 he worked it as if he had fashioned it himself. He was finally forced from office in 1992 by the resurrection of the phone-tapping controversy.

Haughey was a very able minister who, as premier, appeared primarily as a nimble-footed fixer, clever in manœuvre, admired by many for these qualities, and, by many others, equally distrusted. His party and personality difficulties meant that his administrations had little opportunity, even had they had the inclination, to develop creativity in policy.

A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.