There was little in Jim Gavin’s demeanour at the end of last Saturday’s special congress in Croke Park to suggest that his campaign for the presidency of Ireland was about to fall apart.
Then again, he had made an art form out of implacability and reining in emotions when managing Dublin. This time though, there would be no late deliverance.
There has been universal comment about the irony of last weekend when by right Gavin should have been centre stage, accepting bouquets for the extraordinary work done in the past 20 months by his Football Review Committee.
Instead, he was having what was probably one of the worst weekends of his life, culminating in the miserable outcome of having to cease campaigning in the election he had entered with such hoopla just four weeks ago.
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The circus moves on and Wednesday’s blame game within Fianna Fáil will presumably mean a parliamentary party meeting as full of snarling and blood letting as one of those films about something sinister getting into a town’s water supply.
Central to the decision to abandon the contest was a detail from Gavin’s earlier life – a failure to return overpaid rent – which led him eventually to acknowledge: “I made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself.”
When rumours were abounding that the former Dublin manager was on FF’s radar, there were widely voiced reservations, not about his credentials but his readiness for the snake pit into which presidential elections regularly sink for people unused to politics.
Gavin’s accountability for €3,300 underlined the jeopardy of running for election in the age of social media – the danger of becoming defined by a low point in your life.
Possibly, the reason why these public humiliations have become occupational hazards in presidential campaigns is that the office carries no executive power. Without policies to promote and defend, the candidate’s own story becomes the principal focus.
Even without awkward events from their past lives, blameless people, generally with a track record of volunteerism, get chewed up and spat out. The exemplar was Adi Roche, best known for bringing Belarusian children to Ireland for holidays and healthcare.
In 1997, running for Labour, she was subjected to a disgraceful smear campaign, directed not even at her but at her brother, Dónal, an army officer who was dismissed by the Defence Forces in 1969 but later vindicated. During the campaign, her vote collapsed from leading in the polls to fourth out of five.
Last August she told The Irish Times: “When the gloves were off, it was a shockingly dirty campaign, so I would say to anyone considering going forward, to really check with yourself how resilient you are and can be.”
Gavin’s problems from the outset were two-fold. For a start, the office’s requirements were not his forte and his strengths were not within its remit. A brilliant organiser with a flair for executive roles, that is getting things done, he wasn’t known for the ability to articulate inspiring thoughts.
Unlike some of his players, like Michael Darragh Macauley or Philly McMahon, he was not publicly associated with causes like Palestine or combating social disadvantage. People weren’t sure what his political beliefs were. It’s an aspect of the presidency that is of great advantage to politicians.
Their views are widely known, as are their foibles. The rookie candidate has to project, and quickly, an image of themselves and their views – as well as wait for the media to locate any foibles that may be there.
Neither was Gavin used to having to process failure. Extraordinarily, in seven years, he lost just one senior championship football match from which, characteristically, he learned and regrouped the Dublin team to historic effect.
In an ideal world, he would have been running a presidential campaign for someone else.
The second problem was that the campaign was constantly explaining. Having to challenge social media for the posting of lies about his personal life may have been necessary but it was a prophetically difficult start.
Fianna Fáil’s electioneering also landed Gavin in trouble in two of the very areas that were meant to be assets. Running an unlicensed drone to take election footage was an acute embarrassment to someone who was a career aviation regulator.
Posting online pictures of a political candidate back slapping with the military drew immediate protest from the Defence Forces, further embarrassment for someone who had served with distinction in the Air Corps.
Even before the weekend cataclysm, he was trailing third in a field of three.
It’s also staggering to learn that the Irish Independent had informed Fianna Fáil of their knowledge of the rent controversy even before the campaign had begun. It’s a mystery why Gavin was still sent to soldier on for the Sunday debate on The Week in Politics. His senior backers had noticeably disappeared in the days leading up to it.
At the start of the campaign, this column looked at how rare it was to have a strong GAA presence in a presidential election. Maybe that was for a reason. The strong sense of community within the association is built on identity radiating out in concentric circles: club, county, province.
Taken as a whole, it adds up to a strong national presence but it can be very hard for an individual to embody that, which is probably why most GAA-derived politicians start life on local councils and graduate to Dáil constituencies or European Parliament or maybe, national government.
Jim Gavin’s achievements still stand, including at the weekend, the crowning achievement of having reshaped football. Such a pity that the same weekend he also became a cautionary tale.
email: sean.moran@irishtimes.com
