The last of the chieftains is spirited away

MIRRORING the shards of sunlight straining to break through the blue, red and purple stained glass windows of Our Lady of Consolation, benevolent reminiscences of Charles J Haughey’s fell like soft rays upon the assembled congregation in relentless waves.

As the haunting lament of the Lonesome Boatman rippled out across the church it was clear the last of the great Irish clan chieftains was being spirited away, but before he left us the State would try to do him one final service.

The purpose of all funerals is to speak well of the dead. And this was no exception. No shadows would be allowed to fall — no vent would be given to the darker failings of the man.

As his widow Maureen walked mournfully behind the Tricolour-draped coffin, grief was etched upon her face as her children followed close by. All, particularly Ciarán, bore the familiar hooded eyes and Haughey bearing.

It was a momentary insight into the humanity of the occasion as incense permeated the hot, crowded Donnycarney church, and it became ever clearer we were there not merely to pay witness to the redemption of a man’s soul, but his legacy as well.

“It would seem everybody hated Charles Haughey except the people,” his son Sean claimed in his homily.

This was never going to be an occasion where a cold eye would be cast over Haughey’s life and death, to paraphrase Yeats. The vein of the Mass, indeed the thrust of everything that was said during the two days of the State funeral, was aimed at rehabilitation and revision — to dismiss the opponents of the past four decades, to claim the long view of history would look kindly upon him.

The six-man honour guard exuded a look of grim determination as they bore their heavy cargo through the body of the church, their black leather gloves gripping the sides as they struggled it seemed, not just with the weight they carried but the weight of a tumultuous, divisive and problematic era of Irish politics.