LAST UPDATE | 10 Feb 2024

NO MATTER HOW many times he used it, John Bruton always seemed surprised that his phone actually worked.

Or, at least, surprised that anyone answered his calls.

Every phone call he initiated started with the same, slightly confused sounding, “Oh…hello…”

If you worked for John Bruton, as I did for 18 fun months in the 1990s, however, you learned pretty quickly to be never surprised when he called.

These were the days when you still called home landlines rather than mobiles. And that phone could ring at any time of the day or night.

So many faxes

One Christmas, John “discovered” the internet and also seemed to have remembered that he had launched the Fine Gael website not long before.

When he was instructed to “move the cursor around the screen” at that launch he picked up the mouse and placed it directly onto the monitor. He was a visionary politician who had clearly anticipated the invention of the touchscreen. It’s just that technology had not caught up with him.

“Oh… hello…”

“Hello, John. Happy Christmas.”

“Oh yes, Happy Christmas. I’d like to put a message on the internet. On the Fine Gael page.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Well, it’s Christmas. I’ll have to call the webmaster and get him to code it and put it up.”

“I don’t know what that means. I’m faxing you over the message now.”

That was the other thing you got used to when working for John Bruton. The faxes. So many faxes.

Page after page of handwriting would land through. You would type it up, print it out and fax it to Dunboyne. Half an hour later or so, the fax machine would begin spitting out the pages again with handwriting scrawled all over the pages, moving words and paragraphs around and adding in multiple new ones.

More typing, more faxing back and forth, and eventually this junior press officer was able to respond to the Irish Independent’s request for comment on the matter of the day with John Bruton’s very considered and carefully crafted thoughts.

‘A voracious blogger’

John was an endearingly stubborn man. No matter how many times you told him that the paper was only going to carry one paragraph, maybe two, of quotes from him he insisted on providing hundreds of words.

That same Christmas he called again. This time at 9.20 am on New Year’s Day.

“Oh… hello… I’d like to put a New Year’s message on the internet.”

“I’m just on my way out the door to go to Mass, John. Can I call you back in 90 minutes?”

I took my hangover back to bed. John was a man of deep faith, he’d temporarily let you off doing work on a New Year’s Day Sunday morning if he thought you were at Mass.

Despite his early mouse struggles, John came to absolutely love the internet. He recognised its potential, and it became a very regular outlet for his cerebral thoughts and musings on matters national and international. He became a voracious blogger – a transition that saved countless trees and fax machines.

Passionate and principled

John Bruton thought about things a lot. He was a serious, passionate and principled politician. He could quote obscure tracts of European Union legislation but forget the names of his own cousins (his Deputy Leader Nora Owen, who never forgot a name or face, would set him straight on those).

He came across as socially awkward but revelled in the company of other people, especially politicians and those interested in politics.

John’s booming and braying laugh was famous, not just in the Dáil but in Brussels and, eventually when he was the EU Ambassador to the United States, in Washington D.C.

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His beliefs and principles evolved and changed over the course of his political life but were always grounded in a deep sense of fairness. In recent days, he was rightly credited with playing the pivotal role in winning the 1995 Divorce Referendum when he, as Taoiseach, persuasively took up a position that was contrary to that of his Church and faith.

During the 1994-1997 Rainbow Coalition, he became close to the members of Democratic Left. Certainly far closer than anyone thought possible. It was one of the most unlikely political friendships, but it was effective.

I’ve never seen a man who could lower a pint of beer faster than him in a pub (literally seconds) or one who was as pissed as he was after just drinking three pints.

Perhaps because he came to politics at such a young age, John was a passionate believer in, and champion of, young people. He took them very seriously. After the 1997 General Election, when he was back in opposition, he took to visiting universities and colleges regularly.

I was with him in UCD one day, when he walked down the steps of a lecture theatre, took off his jacket and said: “Hello, I’m John Bruton. I used to be more important than I am now, but I hope to become more important than I am now. I’m here to talk to you about politics.”

Winging it

The only time, in my time working for him and then as a political correspondent for many years in Leinster House, that I saw John Bruton pretend to be something that he was not was when it came to GAA.

He was from Meath, then a footballing powerhouse. His political opponent was Bertie Ahern, a man so passionate about sport that he ended up as a sports television pundit and newspaper sports columnist.

So, before an All-Ireland or Leinster final he would have us get on to his good friend and Meath manager, Sean Boylan, to craft a quote “that makes me look like I know what I’m talking about.”

Poor Sean Boylan had to break off preparations the day before a match to help out. At least John didn’t make him type them up and then fax them back and forth half a dozen times.

John Bruton was a very decent man and a passionate believer in public service. He was a patriot, and he served his country very well. May he rest in peace.

Karl Brophy is a Corporate and Crisis Communications Professional and CEO of Red Flag Global. He is a former Newspaper Editor, Lobbyist, Political Correspondent and Fine Gael Press Officer.