On the clogged-up city streets, daily life in modern Ireland was taking shape, while in the north of the county an extraordinary man was breathing his last, surrounded by his family. The rush hour was barely spent when Charles Haughey died shortly before 10am.

The papers that morning had been full of another's passing. Roy Keane announced his retirement from football on Monday. Four years ago, when he was in his prime, Keane inflamed passions across the country, dividing households, after he was sent home from the World Cup. The only other figure in recent history who evoked such heightened feelings had been Haughey.

In the 1980s you were either for or agin' him. There was no middle ground with this hugely talented politician.

Today, only sporting figures retain the ability to burrow into the national psyche to that extent. That politics can no longer do so is, to a large extent, down to the cynicism with which the business is viewed, and Haughey bears the weightiest responsibility for that.

Haughey's illness was the most publicised in the history of the state, yet there had been many false alarms about imminent death over the last few years.

His legend, or notoriety, was such that some couldn't imagine him gone. He had towered, or lurked, over Ireland in the latter half of the 20th century with a character noted for resilience in the face of adversity.

He returned from his sacking and criminal prosecution during the Arms Crisis of the early 1970s. He survived . . .

beating all the odds on one occasion . . .

numerous heaves against his leadership of Fianna Fail in the early 1980s. In latter years he had effectively beaten the Moriarty tribunal, which threatened to expose him to further public humiliation through testimony. He couldn't attend, he said, because he was too ill. Those who didn't believe him saw the old Haughey slinking away to fight another day when his opponents thought they had him cornered. But this time there was no way back.

Coming to bury, not praise The tributes came thick and fast over the airwaves. An emotional Vincent Browne was first up on the Ryan Tubridy Show. When the presenter suggested that there was good and bad in the deceased man, Browne testily replied that that was true of everybody and why should Haughey be singled out for such an observation. His contribution set the tone for much that was to follow over the next few days.

Some of those playing tributes stuck to the man they knew as a friend. The architect Sam Stephenson spoke of convivial visits to Abbeville. PR consultant James Morrissey related how Haughey had remembered that Morrissey's son was suffering headaches, and how he had inquired after the boy's health on a subsequent visit, despite his own worsening physical condition. Bertie Ahern said he was proud to call Haughey a friend, which is as nice a thing as can be said about anybody.

The tone of the tributes was appropriate for a man who, according to his many friends, displayed some fine personal characteristics. It also may well have provided some small solace to the bereaved family.

The problems arose when the professional, as opposed to personal, tributes began to flow. Not speaking ill of the recently deceased is a long tradition in this country, but when it is abused in an attempt to rewrite history, the alarm bells start ringing.

Opposition politicians, with the exception of Pat Rabbitte, largely kept their own counsel about Haughey's legacy. From Fianna Fail though, there came the sound of trumpets.

"Mr Haughey was a man of vision, champion of the elderly and served with distinction in every ministerial post he held, " party chairman Seamus Kirk said.

Charlie McCreevy posited the proposition that Haughey "laid the key foundation stones for Ireland's current economic success". The accolade "great" kept popping up. He was a great man, a great leader, a great politician.

The Taoiseach voiced the opinion that history would judge his predecessor in a positive light. Ahern's only concession to the elephant in the funeral parlour was a remark that, "Okay, maybe there were a few blips along the way, but that's life."

"Never once was I asked to go out and say or do or insinuate anything that wasn't to the highest standards, " Ahern asserted of his old boss. He didn't reference the blank cheques for the leader's allowance that he signed at will.

The most skilful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all, hadn't a clue that his party and the state were being robbed blind.

Others filed the "blips" away under "tribunals", a debased term in public parlance these days. Blips and tribunals.

If that's all the negative stuff that can be dug up about a colossus, what have his friends and supporters to fear from posterity?

By Wednesday, a little reality began to bite. The printed coverage examined the full legacy, warts and all. Later on, Ray MacSharry visited Abbeville, and on leaving told reporters: "He was controversial in his private life but as a politician he served the country well."

MacSharry's line served the revised version of Haughey well too. He took money, but it didn't impinge on his stewardship of the party and state, and shouldn't merit but a mention in his legacy.

It all got to be too much for Labour's Ruairi Quinn, who, at an Oireachtas committee meeting, couldn't let a fawning eulogy from Donie Cassidy of Fianna Fail pass without reply. Haughey, Quinn said, should have been jailed for perjury.

A legacy It was his reaction to the revelations that he had lived for 30 years a kept man that gave a clear insight into Haughey's character. He lied, and lied again, and even when the lies weren't working, he kept lying.

A man widely acknowledged to possess a first-class brain didn't know that his bagman, Des Traynor, was running a criminal empire in the Cayman Islands, and skimming money to keep Haughey in the style to which he was accustomed.

When the country was on its knees, Haughey was living it up, bought by a cabal of the elite. Meanwhile, his bagman was chief executive of a parallel state, and Charlie was their man in the fools' parliament.

No evidence has come to light to suggest he did specific favours for the 10m plus, as one of his benefactors Dermot Desmond pointed out on Wednesday.

But so what? Haughey and Traynor were selling influence, not petty favours. The wonderkids were looking to the long term, assuring their backers that in any hierarchy of interests, theirs would obviously receive priority.

When the state's finances had to be straightened out, it was the weak and vulnerable that suffered most, particularly at the hands of a devastated health service. The millions being washed in the Caymans might have gone some way to alleviate the suffering, but even if he was of a mind to do something about it, Haughey couldn't bite the hand that fed him.

His benefactors saw nothing wrong in keeping the taoiseach of the day. On Wednesday on RTE Radio One, Sean O'Rourke put it to Desmond that Judge Brian McCracken reported that Haughey had failed in his obligation to citizens and the state.

Desmond dismissed this as merely being the judge's opinion.

The inference was obvious. The financier and his buddies knew the real Charlie was working tirelessly and appropriately for the state, whatever the little people or their judicial representative might think.

The skimming and panhandling left another legacy. Haughey, like de Valera before him, spawned a dynastic fortune from dodgy origins. Just as Dev appropriated the Irish Press . . . a Fianna Fail organ . . . as a family asset, so Haughey's offsprings have joined the wealthy elite and acquired corresponding power. Traynor organised the purchase of Abbeville and kept it going through the decades when it was way beyond the reach of a politician's salary. Two years ago it was sold for 35m.

He had certain achievements to his name.

There was the visionary legislation by the brilliant young politician in the 1960s. Nothing of much note after that for over 20 years, apart from a brief, productive, stint at health and social welfare in the late '70s. The Arms Crisis exposed serious flaws in his character.

When he did acquire power, his energy was sapped fighting a rearguard action against enemies and fate, the latter of which conspired to thrust bad luck on him time and again.

In the late 1980s he did get the economy under control, but he had been partly to blame for rendering it a basket case. The decisions he had to take on the economy weren't tough on him, as portrayed at the time. If there was suffering to be done, then that would not be borne by the sugar-daddy class who were paying his wages.

The little people, for whom he always expressed affinity, would have to ship the damage. They did, and continue to do so ever since, through a health service still playing catch-up.

Those who would thrust greatness on him mistake character for personality and ignore the lasting damage he did to politics. His story is pregnant with tragedy. He had huge talent and ambition for both himself and the country.

Yet all was sacrificed on the altar of greed, made possible through wanton self-delusion.

The farewell At one stage on Thursday evening, it looked as if there might be a problem filling the Church of Our Lady of Consolation in Donnycarney.

The crowds that were expected never materialised. Initially, only 10 reporters were allocated seats, but closer to the hour, many more were invited in and told to sit wherever they liked.

Empty seats at the removal would have been a source of embarrassment. The thought occurred that, in a biblical flourish, it might be necessary to pluck passers by off the street to pay respect to the dead leader.

The lack of enthusiasm probably had more to do with busy lives than any reflection on Charlie Haughey's popularity. He would have noted that wryly. After all, while notions of his paternity of the Celtic Tiger are greatly exaggerated, he did play a certain role in elevating the state's fortunes.

Inside, his brother Fr Eoghan Haughey spoke of a man who "dominated and seemingly fascinated the age in which he lived, probably more than any other politician of the times".

"We are gathered here, those of us who knew him well and loved him, loved CJH, Cathal the man, for the great human being he was, " he said.

The voice resonated with that of his brother.

The words were designed to provide comfort to the bereaved, but beyond his immediate family many will continue to remember Haughey in those terms.

An insight into his final years was provided on Thursday morning in Villagemagazine by Vincent Browne's account of his visits to Abbeville over the last five years. The depiction of the ravages of cancer on Haughey's final years was harrowing. Fate, his enemy at vital junctures of his career, had exacted a terrible toll on him in the end. At one stage Browne suggested he'd had a good life.

"Look at me now, " Haughey, in an emaciated state, replied.

Nearly seven years ago, Haughey attended his predecessor's state funeral in Cork. They gave Jack Lynch a king's send-off, but some locals verbally abused Haughey after he emerged from the cathedral. It was at the height of his tribunal travails and he may well have wondered at the time whether he would even be granted a state funeral.

On Friday, he was accorded the honour. The crowds were again not what was expected, measuring in the hundreds rather than thousands.

During the homily, Fr Eoghan Haughey pointed to one of his brother's achievements that was rarely commented on. Ininitiating indirect communication with the IRA, Haughey had taken great risks. If the talks, often hosted in Abbeville, had been discovered, the Arms Crisis from 25 years earlier would have been used as a stick to beat him, possibly ending his career and setting peace back further.

Sean Haughey's reflection on his father concentrated on his role as a "man of the people". "My mother used to say, 'everybody hates Charlie Haughey except the people', " Haughey said, prompting applause.

He reiterated his father's final words on the day of his resignation as taoiseach. "He served the people, all the people, to the best of his ability."

At Lynch's funeral, Dessie O'Malley read the oration, but now the torch was reclaimed by the party. Bertie Ahern's graveside oration continued the theme of a great politician, statesman and giant of the latter half of 20th century Ireland.

Then they put him in the ground.

Death at 80 is rarely tragic, but in the case of Charles J Haughey, the life not led, the missed opportunity, may well have rendered his existence a tragedy of considerable significance.

WHAT THE WORLD SAID. . . .

The Guardian

Adominant presence in his country's affairs, he was credited with laying the foundations of the republic's 'Celtic Tiger' economic boom. But his retirement years were spent in public disgrace amid successive revelations about reputedly corrupt payments from businessmen. In death as in life, Haughey will remain a figure of controversy. Devotees will extol his achievements while critics will continue to damn him. The Irish public at large, however, has made up its own mind: Haughey stands reviled and condemned, as popular sentiment grows increasingly indifferent. Judgment has been passed; Ireland and its young population have moved on.

The London Times

For almost 30 years he was arguably the central and certainly the most controversial and glamorous figure in Irish public life. To many he epitomised the new Irish capitalist class, dynamic, ruthless and brash, just like their IrishAmerican prototype.

The London Independent

His lengthy and extraordinary career was littered with political convulsion, numerous defeats and scarcely believable comebacks. He was in effect Ireland's Richard Nixon, constantly embroiled in heated disputes, constantly denying wrongdoing. Like Nixon, his career ended ultimately in disgrace, and also like Nixon it looked at one stage as though his misdeeds would put him behind bars. . . He had a dark side, and it was very dark indeed.

The LA Times

Haughey oversaw four scandalmarred governments. The first two, from 1979 to 1982, nearly bankrupted the country. The second two, from 1987 to 1992, slashed spending and laid the foundation for the economic boom dubbed the Celtic Tiger. Haughey's followers saw him as a lovable rogue, courageous and visionary. Enemies detested him and deemed him the source of every ill in Irish politics.

The New York Times

By the time he stepped down, Ireland seemed to be divided between those who called him their champion and those who despised him as a rascal bent on enriching himself. Mr Haughey's critics said he was a faker and a fast-talker who took millions in gifts and debt write-offs from businesses and banks, making himself one of the richest men in Ireland despite his modest public salaries.

The International Herald Tribune

Though just 5foot-7 with a hawkish nose and swept-back mane of hair, Haughey towered over his followers, who saw "The Boss" as a lovable rogue, courageous and visionary.

Haughey, a son of embattled republicans from the Catholic ghettos of Northern Ireland, presented himself to Irish voters as a staunch opponent of British sovereignty in Ulster.

Turkish Daily News

Haughey's legacy was tainted by a series of scandals and allegations of corruption. How he could afford a lifestyle that included an 18th-century mansion, an ocean yacht, a private island, a stud farm and a lavish wine cellar was the talk of Ireland for years, but few would have dared question Haughey himself in his prime.

Le Monde

The final tribute to Mr Haughey belongs to the journalist who was his mistress for 27 years and who always referred to him as 'Sweetie'.

This mistress is reported to have said, "His was a personality surrounded by intrigue, mystery and money but protected by his popularity, his intelligence and his instinctive way with words."

[In a significant error, however, Le Monde named Haughey's mistress as, "Moira (sic) Geoghegan-Quinn". The former Fianna Fail minister Maire Geoghegan-Quinn is, in fact, a happily married mother of two sons and it has never been suggested that she had anything other than a professional relationship with Haughey. She is now a member of the European Court of Auditors based in Luxembourg. She said yesterday that she was consulting her lawyers. ]