There can’t be a parent in the country who doesn’t feel a twinge of sympathy for poor Charlie Chawke.

The millionaire publican, whose rise through the ranks injected a new dynamism into the Irish pub scene, cut a pitiful figure as he was wheeled into Limerick Prison on Saturday to visit his disgraced children during their first weekend behind bars.

Seventy-seven-year-old Charlie has been in a wheelchair since his leg was amputated after he developed complications from being shot outside the Goat pub while taking cash to the bank in 2003.

During the armed robbery, he tried to wrestle a sawn-off shotgun off one of the robbers and to make a citizen’s arrest. That fighting spirit seemed undimmed as his son David pushed him towards the prison gate, both men’s faces fixed in grim contemplation.

But there was another force at work beyond grit and determination propelling Charlie to see his Bill and Alison as soon as possible – the wellspring of unconditional love that parents have for their children, which perhaps in this case is laced with a measure of guilt. Since his offspring hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2023, Charlie has endured a dark night of the soul. Alison, a mother of three, and newlywed Bill behaved despicably and there was no excuse for their carry-on.

The vicious assaults, played out in the court of public opinion as well as in a court trial, also brought shame on all belonging to them. No parent expects their children to be perfect or not to make mistakes, but the hope is that they will have copped onto themselves by their 30s and 40s.

Charlie must wonder what on earth got into Alison and Bill that night in the Dunraven Arms. He must have cringed at the evidence of his son imperiously demanding food after midnight and acting like he was lord of the manor. And at Alison – managing director of the Orchard in Rathfarnham, the company’s crown jewel and former record holder for the most expensive pub in Ireland – biting a 50-something stranger’s cheek and pummelling him into the ground.

Charlie famously came down hard on any unorderly behaviour in his own pubs.

Never in his wildest dreams would he have expected his own flesh and blood to indulge in the sort of brawling savagery that would they get them banned, never mind thrown in prison.

But he would have to be an iceberg of a parent not to ask himself if he was not some way to blame or if he should have brought them up differently.

After all, it’s part of the job spec for parents to torment themselves with what-ifs when their children suffer a fall from grace or even if they don’t reach the general milestones.

Charlie might wonder if he gave his kids too much too soon. He might ask himself if the corners might have been knocked off his youngest child, Bill, who runs Searsons on Baggot Street and has his own pizza chain, had he not been handed the keys to the kingdom as a teenager.

Parents do their best for their children, knowing that in the lottery of life, a certain amount of privilege might give them a good start or a cushion against inevitable setbacks and disappointments.

In the case of the five Chawke children, their blessings extended far beyond a fancy school, a car when they turned 18 or any of the other perks of being a scion of a wealthy Dublin family.

Many family businesses expect the next generation to prove themselves before they are handed the reins.

Other dynasties take it further – forcing up-and-coming members to wait for their inheritance and their parents to die before they can have control. Charlie gave each of his children a slice of his empire as soon as they were up for it. Bill became a director of Searsons Inns in 2012 when he was just 17. From 2010, aged 25, Alison was a director of Lena Chawke Limited.

The family is the business, he said often, suggesting that his business philosophy was rooted in harnessing his children’s talents and potential before his string of well-appointed watering holes. The publican’s premium on human or family capital over other resources revealed an extraordinary confidence and trust in the next generation of Chawkes and certainly, in strictly business terms, he seems to have been justified.

But perhaps in human terms he asked too much of his children when he slotted them into his mosaic of pubs when they were still young, saddling them with responsibilities and status prematurely. Only they know the answer to that.

On the flip side, it’s clear that however far the children advanced through the ranks, Charlie was still the boss.

Alison told the court the reason she didn’t give gardaí her name at the hotel was that she was afraid her father would find out about her drunken behaviour.

It’s not unusual for a 40-something daughter to still feel somehow answerable and a bit afraid of her father.

And it’s normal enough for an elderly father to visit his adult children in prison.

A decent and loving father stands by his children in their hour of need.

By doing so, Charlie Chawke shows that aside from the public humiliation, brand damage and the multi-million pub business, the Chawkes are also a normal family trying to survive a scandal as best they can.

What can be worse for Katie Price – her husband Lee Andrews secretly plotting to sell a sex tape for thousands of pounds, or Vogue Williams publicly pitying her for never learning from her relationship mistakes?

Admittedly, Katie is a trainwreck, while Vogue is a highly organised and savvy influencer, but that doesn’t excuse her condescension. Without Katie, who blazed a trail monetising her children and every intimate detail of her life, writing books and eating bugs in reality TV shows, Vogue might still be estimating the cost of concrete as a quantity surveyor in Howth.

Instead, she’s become a multimillionaire by following Katie’s template almost to the letter.

She should be bowing down to the OG, not ridiculing her.