THE BRIAN LENIHAN I KNEW:BRIAN LENIHAN made it easy for us to forget he was dying.
Minister for finance in the middle of a massive economic crisis. He had cancer. He wanted to do his job. What he didn’t want was sympathy.
He made one demand of his opponents: “Aggressive intervention!” They were not to hold back.
They didn’t. The minister made it easy for them to forget.
Yes, the future was uncertain, but Brian Lenihan was aware of two things. He knew that with time, and no small amount of pain, the country would recover. And he knew he had time, and no small amount of pain, but the diagnosis was terminal.
He was 50 years old – it was Christmas 2009 – when he found out. But he was back at his desk at the beginning of the new year.
Noblesse oblige.
A lot of people had good cause to curse a politician and his party and their politics for bringing the country to this sorry state.
But they were genuinely heartbroken when they learned of Brian’s devastating medical condition.
The Lenihans have been with us for as long as we can remember, with their unique brand of political soap opera. Never dull, often controversial, always different.
People who never met him felt they knew Brian.
You couldn’t fall out with him. He was the cut of his father, charming, likeable, with those doleful panda eyes and that wheezy-blustery way of speaking.
Given his pedigree and academic brilliance, he could have been awfully pompous, but he wasn’t, this Belvo boy who went to Trinity and Cambridge and the King’s Inns. Naturally, he took silk. He was fluent in several languages. But like his dad, Brian made that easy to forget.
He liked a drink and late nights. He wasn’t afraid of journalists and argued his corner. He loved to gossip and could be hilariously indiscreet. And he could never fathom why nobody believed he didn’t dye his thicket of jet black hair.
He could be conceited too, with that pedigree. He was far from perfect.
Up to a few weeks ago, the sight of him beetling across the Dáil canteen was a welcome sight. He was great company.
Yet, by this stage, we all knew he was very ill. He didn’t talk about it. At the outset, he had gently chivvied tearful staff: “No need for that sort of carry on!” Brian wanted to be leader of Fianna Fáil. But when the opportunity came at the chaotic end of the last government, he botched it.
During that infamous Galway Fianna Fáil think-in last year, we sat in the hotel lobby and had a long conversation.
There had been much talk about him mounting a challenge. We could see he was still thinking about making a move, trying to talk himself out of it, but not convincing either of us.
Finally, he put down his glass of red wine. “For f***’s sake, I’m dying!” he blurted out.
But he did it anyway.
Brian had the generosity to make it easy for us to forget.
And it makes the shock of his passing all the deeper today.
