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Kiss and tell

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — Gossip columnist Terry Keane has done a kiss-and-tell and revealed how she has been having an affair with disgraced former Taoiseach Charles Haughey for the last 27 years.

Keane, 59, who is married to Supreme Court judge Ronan Keane, began her confession on the penultimate "Late Late Show" and said her disclosures were being made with the knowledge of both the judge and the former taoiseach.

She claimed the judge was "fully supportive" of her book and she had told Haughey over lunch the day before.

"Charlie asked me if I could wait, because there is so much going on at the moment, but I told him that this other book was coming out, full of lies about us, as far as I know, and now was the time to tell the real story," Haughey said.

She said she was sorry Haughey’s family and her own had been hurt by the relationship. Keane and Haughey each have four children from their marriages and are now grandparents.

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They never talked to each other about their spouses, as Haughey is "old fashioned" and would have regarded it as beyond the bounds of decency, Keane said. Haughey married Maureen Lemass, daughter of the former taoiseach, in 1951 and she has remained loyal to him.

"I love my husband. He loves me as Maureen loves Charlie and Charlie loves Maureen," Keane said. "In real life people get hurt, it wasn’t utopia."

Keane said that when they met in a nightclub there had been an instant attraction — "a very strong mutual attraction."

"He is larger than life, he is very attractive, strong, clever, entertaining, amusing, irreverent, wonderful . . . and Mr. Wrong, patently Mr. Wrong," Keane said.

She said they had never considered running away together.

"We were both married to other people," Keane said. "I think he loves me very much. I love him very much.

"People talk about affairs and they think of sex. Sex is a

very small part of an affair."

Last Sunday more details were revealed when the Sunday Times began to serialize her memoirs, which the paper splashed over six pages.

The memoirs detail some of the love trysts and rows of the affair and she alleges Haughey "orchestrated" her husband’s appointment by Taoiseach Jack Lynch as the youngest High Court judge ever.

She claims that in 1979 she told Haughey that she thought her husband should become a judge but never dared discuss her plan with her husband, whom she said would have been "appalled."

After initially saying that Keane had not got a chance of getting the job, she claims Haughey, then health minister, said, "Wouldn’t it be quite interesting to test how much power I have? Can I make your husband a judge?"

He also reveals that at one stage she was looking at losses of £500,000 as a result of her membership of a Lloyds insurance syndicate.

She has resigned from and virtually disowned her bitchy "Keane Edge" column in the Sunday Independent — which she described as a monster" — and will now write a column for the British paper.

She said her gossip column had hurt a lot of people and resigning from it made it the "happiest day of my life".

The Sunday Independent claims she is getting £600,000 over two years from the Sunday Times for what they describe as "her ultimate act of betrayal" of Haughey.

Another reason for her reassessing her life and deciding to go public was a recent heart-related health scare.

While her relationship with Haughey has been an open secret in some circles, this is the first time either of them went public about and the revelation is sure to shock many people.

She admitted her memoir was a preemptive strike before a book called "Sweetie" — her column code name for Haughey — by Independent journalist Kevin O’Connor is published. She heard it would portray "a very loveless relationship punctuated only be expensive dinners or trips on yachts.

"But it was not like that," Keane said. "I wanted to show it really was love and, yes, people did get hurt, but you can’t help who you fall in love with."

The exposures would not mark the end of the affair. "We are not going to stop loving each other or being friends or talking to seeing each other," Keane said.

She said the relationship had gone on throughout Haughey’s three periods as taoiseach in the 1980s and 1990s. His political elevation added a "frissant" to the affair," she said. "It does make it more exciting."

They were in daily contact and he discussed affairs of state with her. He made no secret of the fact that he thought she had great political judgment and acumen.

"We would often discuss things and he would often listen to me and maybe change his minds slightly on things," Keane said.

She launched a spirited defense of Haughey and his political record to muted heckling from the "Late Late Show" audience.

"I think he has been treated very, very badly," she said. "I think people should see the man as a whole not because he didn’t pay income tax. I’m not defending what he did, but we are all fraud, nobody is perfect."

Her remark that "of course he should have paid taxes and I think he has settled all that now" brought laughter.

She claimed that what is said in the media does not reflect the attitudes of the plain people of Ireland because Haughey got hundreds and thousands of letters all the time.

She was revolted and disgusted by a comparison on a TV current affairs program of pedophile priest Fr. Brendan Smyth and Haughey.

"Brendan Smyth buggered little boys, Charlie has never done [that]. . . . He took money from people who were very willing to give it to him so that he would go and not have to worry about his own finances . . . [and] could go and run this country, which he did brilliantly and brought us the Celtic Tiger," Keane said.

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