One leader’s forgotten milestone serves to mark his rival’s virtues

LAST week was the 30th anniversary of Charlie Haughey’s election as Taoiseach for the first time, but the occasion seemed to pass without notice in the media. Maybe it is a measure of how low he has descended in the eyes of the public. Although he had always been acutely conscious of carving out a place in history for himself, it seems his reputation is now in tatters.

Haughey was the poor boy who made it to the top the hard way. Even though he married the daughter of Seán Lemass, he had to stand for election four times before he made it into the Dáil.

Garret FitzGerald, on the other hand, was from a privileged background as the son of a cabinet minister. He breezed into the Seanad and later into the Dáil with little difficulty.