“Gay is a bit dry, but Kathleen is great fun,” Charlie Haughey once told me, summing up the most famous media couple of the era. Living in relatively proximity in Co Dublin, Haughey and his wife Maureen, in Kinsealy, and Gay Byrne and wife Kathleen Watkins in nearby Howth, they often found themselves in each other’s company on social occasions. Although Byrne, a (closet) Fianna Fáil supporter, was wary of The Boss, Watkins had no such inhibitions and shared Haughey’s love of Irish culture, poetry, music and fun.
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