He entered politics to do good and he succeeded; this is a decent man who deserves happiness, writes Des Peelo
Charlie is in his sixth decade of causing trouble. Motivated by a wonderful mother, he had three degrees (and honours in all of them) by his mid-twenties, and in one way or another has been in our lives ever since. Thirteen years out of political life, the recent television series on his life attracted half a million viewers in summertime. Charlie didn't watch it.
Charlie is 80 today, Maureen was 80 a few weeks ago. Last Sunday there was a small lunch gathering in Kinsealy to celebrate their birthdays. Their four children, eight grandchildren, the extended family and a few close friends were there. Abbeville is a home, not a grand mansion. Weary but unbowed by illness, I have never seen Charlie happier. He deserves happiness.
Jimmy Saville, the television entertainer and no intellectual slouch himself, told me a few years ago that Charlie was the most intelligent person he has ever met. He is right. Charlie is a genius, a kind genius.
I have no doubt at all that Charlie entered politics to do good. He has never forgotten the awful poverty and huge emigration of the 1940s and 1950s, and indeed well into the 1960s. As a child and as a young man he witnessed it and, coming from that background, he is our last surviving senior politician to have done so. I have seen Charlie distressed in talking about it.
Sometimes I suspect that he blames de Valera for holding the country back. This suspicion is confirmed by the huge and rightful admiration he holds for his father-in-law, the late Seán Lemass, for bringing this country out of what bordered on destitution.
Charlie's initiatives for poor people and old-age pensioners were founded on his childhood experiences.
Politicians have an enormous capacity to spend taxpayers' money. It goes with the territory. But few have the capacity to do it the other way around and create the wealth that funds the taxation - baking a bigger cake, as Charlie sometimes says.
Ireland is a small offshore island without much going for us. Look at the map of the world and realise that every single country, and even regions within each country, are competing with us for investment and jobs.
Name almost any country, and likely you will already have a pre-formed impression of that country. Charlie created a visionary perception of Ireland with his pen. The artists' tax exemption and the stallion fees' exemption created an international perception of Ireland as a cultured and educated country.
Well-travelled Irish business men will tell you of the importance of this perception for our tourism and in attracting international investment.
Those initiatives, together with the IFSC and others, cost us nothing. The commentators who jump up and down about the tax forgone on those initiatives forget that we would not have the business in the first place without those exemptions.
There are 20,000 employed in the horse-racing industry, not to mention 17,000 employees and something now approaching €1 billion corporation tax from the IFSC. The Succession Act, now 40 years old, gave women their proper status long before other countries did.
All from Charlie's pen.
Charlie has a wicked sense of humour, much of it not repeatable here. I once heard Margaret Thatcher dismissed with the words: "Denis must wear earplugs." What was meant to be a frosty private meeting with a prominent unionist politician turned into a hilarious mutual rubbishing of the British Foreign Office. Enough said - before libel lawyers sharpen their pencils.
Charlie has a fault. His personal kindness repeatedly gets him into trouble. He has trusted people that I would not let in the front door, and he has been let down. For all of his considerable intelligence, Charlie is puzzled by this. He hasn't a clue. But then many, many of his political colleagues (on all sides), his constituents, and his friends will speak of his legendary kindness to those down in their luck, including myself.
Charlie is not a snob, nor have I ever known him to be discourteous to anybody not able to speak back to him as an equal. He moves well at any level, and is as happy talking to your mother as to the US president.
Sometimes Charlie is insufferable, particularly when he hits the stubborn button. No amount of persuasion, logic, reasoning, will dissuade him when he has fixated on something. Two or three days later he will come to you and present your opinion back to you as his opinion, and he forgives you for being misguided.
Charlie did many things I would prefer he hadn't done. At times the genius was certainly misdirected - but I'm not sure that Charlie understands that. But I do know that these things are greatly outweighed by the offsets. Charlie rarely speaks ill of anybody, even his bitterest opponents. Nor does he complain.
Charlie's illness has been a heavy burden, and at times I can see it gets him down but, as I said, he never complains.
Charlie entered politics to do good and he succeeded. I write of a good and decent man, who in time will be identified and respected for the enormous contribution he made to the well-being of Ireland. Thank you, Charlie. Happy birthday.