Pádraig Faulkner (1918–2012)

Faulkner provides an interesting narrative of his early life in Louth and how he became inveigled to stand for Fianna Fáil. After Joseph Connolly he becomes only the second Fianna Fáil Minister to write his memoirs. His view on the Arms Trial and on the heaves of the 1980s follow the standard Lynch-O'Malley line. He is adamant gunrunning was not sanctioned. One wonders has he read O'Brien's The Arms Trial. His argument that because Lynch was undermined, in his view, by Haughey and his supporters, does not stand up to scrutiny and his use of this tangental argument to support opposition to Haughey in the 1980s is quite vacuous and a little lame. To compare the heaves of the 1980s to Lynch's last year is ridiculous. Like O'Malley, Lynch, and the PDs, Faulkner puts Jim Gibbons on a pedestal with Haughey far below. One major failing of the book is the lack of an index which would assist the use of the book for reference purposes. The tempo of the book could also be somewhat pacier.… (mehr)