Browne is often portrayed as the one journalist who, before the truth emerged about Haughey's finances, stood up to the former taoiseach in relation to the sources of his obvious wealth. But, while Browne never shirked the difficult questions, the truth is more complex than that. For example, it was respected financial journalist Des Crowley, writing in the Evening Press, who actually came closest to getting to the heart of the story, when in 1983 he wrote an article revealing Haughey's debts with AIB. The story was emphatically denied.

And despite Browne's regular probing of Haughey and his finances, it seems that the former taoiseach probably always had a soft spot for him. Haughey had a generally jaundiced view of the media but there seems little doubt that he respected Browne, despite the fact that he was often on the receiving end of his criticism in Magill, the Sunday Tribune or whatever organ Browne happened to be writing for.

According to Browne, he first asked Haughey about how he got the money to afford such a fine house in 1968, when he visited him in his first grand home, Grangemore in Raheny. "I asked him the same question again and again over the years, " he wrote last week in Village magazine.

He also recalled going out to Kinsealy in 1977 to interview Haughey after he had been made a government minister. "I had a terrible hangover that morning and I asked him to write out something controversial . . . anything controversial . . . while I went for a swim in the pool, " Browne wrote.

He says that they fell out shortly after Haughey became taoiseach . . . Browne contends that "it isn't possible . . . or at least it isn't appropriate, I think . . . for a journalist to be on other than adversarial terms with a politician in senior office". Haughey was apparently appalled that Browne was planning on publishing a major series in Magill on the 1970 arms trial and relations got worse as Haughey failed to deliver decisive remedies to the economy. With Haughey in opposition in the mid-1980s, "diplomatic relations were opened via PJ Mara" before hostilities resumed when Haughey returned to power in 1987.

In 2001, when Haughey nearly died of a heart attack, Browne wrote to him saying: "Jaysus, don't go on us yet." Haughey phoned him and the two men began to meet regularly right up to eight weeks before his passing.

Browne wrote about those meetings in a moving piece in last week's edition of Village.

On one occasion, as he saw Browne to the door of Kinsealy, Haughey said: "Give me a hug." The two old adversaries hugged and Browne left in tears, unable to look back to see how Haughey was.

Browne also wrote of how privileged he felt to have access to one of the most interesting personalities of Irish history . . . someone in the league, he said, of Michael Collins or Eamon de Valera. "And over the years I got very fond of him. I had always liked him, even when we were in adversarial combat while he was taoiseach, but now there was a fondness."

Browne recalled his conversations, over a glass of wine, with Haughey at Kinsealy and how they spoke about gaelic football, red wine, Guinness, The Da Vinci Code, his medical condition, France, Bertie Ahern, Albert Reynolds, swimming in the Clontarf Baths, Sean Haughey and many, many other topics, including the monies he got from various people.

Browne concluded by paying tribute to Haughey's accomplishment . . . one shared with his wife Maureen . . . of bringing up a secure, happy, well-adjusted, loving family. "This wasn't a corny observation, " Browne said. "It came after he said there was nothing in his life of which he was proud."

While there have been some raised eyebrows at the mellowing in the relationship and the soft-focus nature of the article in Village, Browne has consistently argued for balanced analysis of Haughey's career. In 2000, Browne, while presenting Prime Time, objected to the insertion of "eerie" music in a report about Haughey's dealings with the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals. He threatened not to present the programme because he felt the insertion was editorialising and demonised the former taoiseach.