Constituents remember the person, not the politician

AT Mr Haughey’s beloved Abbeville in Kinsealy, north Co Dublin, it was a day of comings and goings.

On the stroke of 1pm, a gleaming hearse drove up the laneway, followed not long afterwards by Mr Haughey’s brother, Fr Eoghan, in his modest black Ford Fiesta. Looking understandably shaken, he nudged his way up the lane after speaking with gardaí who were stationed at the house since early morning.

The first bouquet of flowers was left by a middle-aged woman, who laid a bunch of pink and yellow carnations on the ground and silently slipped away.