Haughey and his reduced Shakespeare works

IN his last speech to the Dáil as Taoiseach, Charles Haughey quoted from the closing lines of Othello, saying: “I have done the State some service; they know’t. No more of that.”

If he had read on a few lines, he would have seen Othello refer to himself as a man who was “perplexed in the extreme”, who had “traduced the State” and was “richer than all his tribe”.

What possible reason could Mr Haughey have had for omitting these lines? It seems his selective memory was not just confined to his later life at the tribunals.