Fallen Idol : Haughey's Controversial Career

This is the story of Haughey's controversial career, from the 1960s to date, drawing extensively on personal recollection.

The book is a reissue of Ryle Dwyer's "Haughey's Thirty Years of Controversy", with a new updated chapter on recent events in the Haughey saga.

Charles Haughey and controversy have always been synonymous.

He has been involved in major political scandals of Watergate proportions in four different decades: in the 1960s and 1970s as Fianna Fail minister; and in the 1980s as a Taoiseach minister.

When Sean Doherty finally blew the whistle on the "Liffeygate" scandal - the earlier tapping of the telephones of political journalists - Haughey fell from power in 1992.

But it was the events of 1997, particularly the Payments to Politicians Tribunal, that finally toppled Charles Haughey.

Fired by his prodigious self-belief, reassured by his ability to literally rise from the dead in political terms, Haughey had managed to retain the aura of a god-like national leader despite all the controversies, speculation, douts and mysteries.

The confirmation of massive payments made by Ben Dunne to Charlie Haughey changed all that.