Sir, – Prof Diarmaid Ferriter ("Charles Haughey's Civil War trauma: The country owes them more than starvation", August 28th) states that "Just before Charles's death in 2006 he referred to his father as 'a committed supporter of Cumann na nGaedheal . . . very [Michael] Collins'."
This is not correct. Ferriter’s mistaken assertion would appear to arise from a misreading of Frank Kennedy’s article in this newspaper in his interview with my father shortly before my father’s death in 2006 (“A fading Charles Haughey looks back over his past”, June 11th, 2009).
The relevant portion of Kennedy’s article states:
“His own family, however, had not been a Fianna Fáil one, but rather his father had been a committed supporter of Cumann na nGaedhael, the precursor to Fine Gael. Why then did he join Fianna Fáil? He smiled broadly at that, the Haughey smile, definitely mischievous, and said that his father had indeed been ‘very Collins’.”
It is clear from the above extract that my father did not refer to his father as “a committed supporter of Cumann na nGaedhael”. Rather, in response to a question posed he described his father as “very Collins”.
Kennedy has confirmed to me that this is correct, as is apparent from his article.
Ferriter’s article gives the erroneous impression that my father used words that he did not.
– Yours, etc,
SEÁN HAUGHEY TD,
Dáil Éireann,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.