Charles Haughey

Charles James Haughey (16 September 1925 – 13 June 2006) was the sixth Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, serving from 1979 to 1981, March 1982 to December 1982 and from 1987 to 1992. He was from the Fianna Fáil party and was known for being a forceful character.

Sourced

• It was a bizarre happening, an unprecedented situation, a grotesque situation, an almost unbelievable mischance.
  • T. Ryle Dwyer, "Charlie: The political biography of Charles Haughey" (1987), chapter 12.
  • Originally used at a press conference in 1982 to refer to an incident in which a wanted murderer was arrested in the house of the Attorney-General, but subsequently turned into "Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, unprecedented" and made a catchphrase. Sometimes rendered into the acronym "GUBU".

• It's guarded by units of the British army and I can never come up to this border without experiencing deep feelings of anger and resentment.
  • Ex-Irish Taoiseach Haughey dies (BBC News online)
  • In a television documentary in the 1980s.

• I could instance a load of f*ckers whose throats I'd cut and push over the nearest cliffs,but there's no percentage in that!
  • • The Flawed Chieftain (The Guardian 'Comment is Free')
  • In an interview with Hot Press magazine

• The best, the most skillful, the most devious and the most cunning.
  • On Bertie Ahern, reported in Bertie Ahern, CNN World News (1998).

About Haughey

• You know, I have a theory about Charlie Haughey. If you give him enough rope, he'll hang you.
  • BBC Ireland correspondent Leo Enright at the end of Haughey's premiership.