Profile: The Lenihan political dynasty - the colourful family has been at the heart of many a controversy: When Conor Lenihan this week told Joe Higgins in the Dáil to 'stick with the kebabs', it wasn't the first time his mouth had got him into trouble, writes Róisín Ingle.
'I wouldn't want to trivialise the matter," says one Fianna Fáil TD discussing kebabgate this week, "but mostly the response to his remark around Leinster House was just 'that's Conor for you'. He is like a boy in a classroom who wants desperately to be well-behaved but just can't resist the temptation to stick the sharp end of his compass into the bottom of the boy in front."
Another response has been "that's the Lenihans for you". Informed sources say that last year when the Drapier column in this newspaper suggested Conor Lenihan was universally regarded in the Dáil as "affable but mad" the 42-year-old TD considered taking legal action. It was his aunt, Seanad leader Mary O'Rourke, who dissuaded him. "I told him it would be difficult to take action against an anonymous opinion," she told The Irish Times this week.
The Drapier article was prompted by Conor Lenihan's statement when elevated to Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development and human rights last year that it was unlikely the Government's benevolent promises on foreign aid would be kept. It was a frank admission which less honest politicians would not have divulged and he was later forced to do a U-turn on the statement.
His puppy-like enthusiasm, unbridled energy and propensity for sticking his foot in his mouth earned him the nickname Crazy Horse back when he was a political reporter. He wasn't long in the Dáil before the story circulated that one of his senior colleagues had been sufficiently moved by his antics to inquire as to whether Lenihan's spaceship was parked on the Leinster House lawn.
One deputy this week says he believes gaffe-prone Lenihan is "seriously underestimated" because of this perception.
"I think it's a pity actually, this professional buffoonery, because he is a really engaging guy to talk to about serious literature and international and Anglo-Irish politics. He really has an ability to keep you enthralled on these subjects," he comments.
Conor Lenihan came to the Dáil in 1997, while his older brother Brian, who celebrates his 46th birthday today, was first elected to the Dáil in the year prior to that in a Dublin West by-election caused by the death of their father Brian Lenihan Snr in 1995.
Brian Jnr, a senior counsel, is seen as a more serious figure than Conor and viewed as an authority on constitutional matters. "Brian Jnr is extremely intelligent, and extremely able," says one member of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. "He knows it and he shows it. He has all the mannerisms of his late father - the way he stands and puts his hands in his jacket pocket when speaking. There is an earnestness about him that in the case of the father was slightly contrived but with Brian it's the real deal."
One political reporter says the Minister of State with responsibility for children, who has in recent years seemed a likely contender for a full Cabinet position, has a tendency to call journalists out of the blue at odd times but concedes he belongs to the more sensible wing of the Lenihan family.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO the father of the Lenihan brothers was a candidate for the presidency but Brian Snr's campaign came unstuck after he denied ringing Áras an Uachtaráin to ask the president not to dissolve the Dáil on the night the Fine Gael and Labour coalition fell. The most memorable television image from that campaign is of Lenihan looking down a camera telling the people of Ireland that he made no such call. Shortly afterwards an interview he had done with a post-graduate student, Jim Duffy, in which he confirmed the phone call, became public and he was asked by the then taoiseach Charles Haughey to resign.
With typical Lenihan tenacity he continued his presidential campaign, receiving the highest number of first-preference votes, but losing out to Mary Robinson on transfers. His political career spanned almost 40 years during which he held many senior positions including minister for justice, education, transport, foreign affairs, tánaiste and, finally, during his recuperation from a liver transplant, the portfolio of defence.
For all that, his political legacy according to one observer, was not as significant as might have been expected from someone with such a wide-ranging career. "He was happy to play the warm-up man to Haughey and there is a sense that he was an intelligent politician who never achieved his full potential because he threw it all away to play the bar-room buffoon," says a senior political analyst.
Meanwhile, Henry Boylan's A Dictionary of Irish Biography describes Brian Snr as an "affable man of great natural charm, contemporary politicians agreed that his easy manner concealed a sharp intelligence backed by wide reading".
Some would say the same about his son Conor, but in his constituency of Dublin South-West, a local newspaper was this week calling for the Minister of State to "consider his position".
A political source in the constituency is unequivocal. "He shouldn't have done it," he says. "I would have had a lot of time for his father, a lot of respect for his decisions in relation to Tallaght hospital and some of the schools and I'd have the same respect for Mary O'Rourke. The Lenihan family are well got around here. But if you ask most people they will tell you Brian is easier to deal with than Conor who is, shall we say, different. He needs to learn from this incident but his record of gaffes in the past suggests he won't."
THE NOTION THAT gentle eccentricity is something of a family trait is suggested again and again by commentators. "They all have a slight oddness, which in their case is a fairly endearing oddness," says one political commentator, who has observed the family in the Dáil over the years. "Politicians loved their father for this and in the same way they have a soft spot for Conor and Brian. Mary [ O'Rourke] would have more of an edge and a steel about her than the two boys. But what they all have in common is a daft way of going on which, to varying degrees, masks their intelligence."
O'Rourke, a former minister for education and for health, who lost her Westmeath seat in 2002 and plans to stand again at the next election, caused a kerfuffle as minister for public enterprise five years ago when she revealed to Morning Ireland listeners that she was in the bath when she heard about the resignation of the CIE chairman Brian Joyce.
"I would say, number one, that we Lenihans have a loquaciousness and, number two, that we are good with words but that can sometimes be a handicap as this thing with Conor shows," she says of her nephew. "He is sparky and so am I, but over the years I have learned to bite my lip and curtail my sparky side."
Approaching her 68th birthday, she is writing a book about her family and is currently finishing the parts about her father, PJ Lenihan, the Athlone businessman and later hotelier who followed his son Brian into the Dáil when, in the late 1960s, he was elected in the Longford/Westmeath constituency. His daughter was elected in the same constituency some years later. In 1987 she and Brian Snr became the first brother and sister to serve in the same cabinet.
The Lenihan clan stick together. "We don't go around giving each other hugs or linking arms but we watch out for each other," says O'Rourke. "Conor is downcast about the whole thing at the moment but while what he said was inappropriate he has not got a racist bone in his body. I am confident he will come through this."
Grilled, roasted or skewered, the Lenihans usually do.
TheLenihanFile:
Who are they? The Lenihan family, one of this country's most enduring political dynasties
Why are they in the news? Conor Lenihan controversially told the TD who works with Turkish Gama workers, Joe Higgins, to "stick with the kebabs". He later apologised for any offence caused by the remark.
Most appealing characteristic; Their boundless energy and sharp intellect
Least appealing characteristic: Their ability to generate controversy
Most likely to say: Feck the begrudgers
Least likely to say: I hereby offer my resignation