Dublin Report In Haughey’s wake, reporters’ lament rings hypocritical

By John Kelly

Blessed are we to be alive in this tiny island when so much continues to happen all around us. No sooner had we swept "Sweetie" aside like an unwanted dessert when Sophie Rhys-Jones swooped in to capture the headlines.

Who is Rhys-Jones?

A very good looking young woman, that’s who. At least, she was 10 years ago when she shared a taxi in Spain with a disc jockey and a friend. You’ve got to be careful of amateur photographers. You’ve also got to be careful of disc jockeys like Chris Tarrant if you happen to be wearing a bikini.

Young Rhys-Jones was then working as a press officer with Capital Radio, one of the more popular radio stations in England. In the cab, Tarrant’s co-presenter, Kara Noble, a name that belies her character, had her camera at the ready when the D.J. playfully pulled down Rhys Jones bikini top.

And there it was, splashed all over the shocking tabloid Sun 10 years later for all of the world to see. The well-endowed Rhys Jones was fully exposed in almost every sense of the term.

Nothing new in that, you might say. It happens to the "Baywatch" girls all the time at the drop of a check from Playboy magazine. Trouble is, Rhys-Jones is the fiancée of Prince Edward, son of the queen of England.

Naturally, the royal family complained, and this time –for one of the few times ever — the Sun apologized. But you can be sure that it did not trouble the publisher too much.; the deed was done, the money made.

Partly as a result of this, and totally as the result of the astounding revelations concerning "Sweetie" and Terry Keane, who in one paper is pictured lying on a carpet, dressed in a brown leather skirt, hand on her derriere as she is kissed by a stooping Charlie Haughey, the press has become a topic of conversation on almost all of the airwaves.

There is a continuing discourse on the morals, the mores and means of Keane, a political courtesan, columnist and former fashion writer who has created a riveting line of gossip as the result of her revelations concerning her 27-year relationship with the former taoiseach.