Rural Ireland was naive about Charlie Haughey

In this country, Charlie Haughey was God, particularly in rural Ireland.

I remember, in one of our local pubs here in Glenties, in the 1980s, when I was on one of my youthful drinking sessions, there was a discussion about Charlie. Naively, I said that he was “a bit of a gangster”.

Suddenly, the silence in the pub was deafening — and a bit scary.