Netflix is currently broadcasting a documentary on Salvador Dali, the celebrated Spanish artist famed as an exponent of surrealism.
The Dalí film brings to mind the controversy – or, more accurately, the non-controversy – about Ireland’s missing Dali.
The Irish state was presented with a Dalí picture (some say a sketch) by the Spanish government in 1985. The gift was made directly to Dr Garret FitzGerald, the then taoiseach. FitzGerald put it in his attic for three years with no one any the wiser. Then, three years later, he suddenly ‘remembered’ what he had done, and lodged the picture in a bank vault.
On one account, FitzGerald’s memory was prompted by criticism of Charles Haughey after Mrs. Haughey had been gifted a bejewelled dagger by an Arabian prince. A debate was taking place about the dagger: was it a personal gift or one to the State? The Irish Times – which had ignored the Dali story – was up in arms about the dagger.
On another account, FitzGerald just happened to be having the contents of his house valued circa 1989 when he rediscovered that the rather valuable Dalí picture was in his possession.
This bizarre – some might say surreal – story was ignored by the mainstream media in the 1980s as it was assumed by all right thinking editors that ‘Garret the Good’ could do no wrong. There was one exception, an article which appeared in NOW magazine. It was written by the magazine’s editor, the late Frank Doherty.
The mainstream media was a little less deferential a decade later when it reported that two banks had wiped out FitzGerald’s financial liabilities.
AIB and Ansbacher wrote off debts of almost £200,000 that FitzGerald owed to them in the early 1990s. FitzGerald was in financial difficulties at the time because of the collapse of the aircraft leasing company, GPA, in which he was a shareholder.
Like Haughey, another beneficiary of a massive AIB write-off, FitzGerald insisted that no favours were asked or given.
FitzGerald wrote not one but two memoirs. Between them they dissected the minutiae of his life but, alas, nothing whatsoever about the missing Dali.
The books ignored other sensitive topics. They do not address how FitzGerald paid tax on his earnings as a journalist while he was working as a civil servant prior to his entry into politics. FitzGerald scribbled for a number of British publications under an assumed name as he was forbidden from moonlighting while in the employ of the State. Since Ireland’s Revenue Commissioners were part of the State, he could hardly have hoped to make a return without alerting the civil service that he was double jobbing.
The NOW magazine article can be read as a pdf below.