Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/a> So it may go now with another Taoiseach from Cork.<\/p>\nThere are a few differences between Jack Lynch and Miche\u00e1l Martin, along with other similarities, one of which may well be a crucial determinate in Martin\u2019s political fate right now.<\/p>\n
First, the differences. Lynch came to politics with a clutch of All-Ireland medals in his back pocket, having hurled for Glen Rovers and the county. He also dabbled in football, being part of the St Nicholas side that got to a county final. Playing with him on that team was one Paddy Martin.<\/p>\n
Paddy\u2019s son Miche\u00e1l, the current Taoiseach, is a Nemo man.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t make it to the county team, although his own son Miche\u00e1l Aodh is the current Cork goalkeeper.<\/p>\n
Martin came to politics young, running for the city council in 1985, having barely completed his third-level education. Unlike Lynch, his entry to politics was at the ground floor rather than through fame achieved on the sporting field.<\/p>\n
His first successful election to the D\u00e1il was in 1989, and he has been there for the 37 years since.<\/p>\n
In his longevity, he resembles a politician more from the Lynch era than his own. So much for differences.<\/p>\n
The similarities include a cautious disposition, a preference to hug the middle ground rather than head out along the political spectrum, and a status that can attract admirers from beyond their own political tribe.<\/p>\n
Former Northern Ireland ombudsman and senator Maurice Hayes described the Glen Rovers man as possessing \u201cgrace and dignity, class and style\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some of those attributes fed into Lynch\u2019s electoral success in 1977 when he won a landslide election, increasing his party\u2019s seat compliment by 15 to 80. He had been out of power for four years, and many had written his political obituary.<\/p>\n
\u201cJack is back!\u201d blazed the hometown headline in the Cork Examiner. In The Echo, a front page piece by reporter Dick Brazil wrote what might have seemed obvious but, in retrospect, was the red rag to fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis leadership has now been put beyond question and he can remain at the helm as long as he wishes, and certainly throughout the life of the 21st D\u00e1il,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
From there on, he made the mistake of the hurler who has just goaled and mistakenly believes that his talent has ensured the game is well beyond the opposition\u2019s capacity to retrieve: He pulled up, thinking that the game was won.<\/p>\n
Towards the back end of 1979, there were two by-election defeats in the bag and a scheming Charles Haughey whispering into the ears of a whole clutch of young Turks who had been elected on the Lynch wave. That heralded the end.<\/p>\n
There are two by-elections scheduled for next month, and they may turn out to be a major blow to the current Taoiseach\u2019s aspiration to lead until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n
\n Like Lynch, Martin is also a comeback kid\n <\/p>\n
He took over the party in 2011 when it was going through an existential crisis. The rest of the country wasn\u2019t paying too much attention to the party\u2019s woes as the economic crash was visiting misery on every home and business.<\/p>\n
The blame for such upheaval, when the State was just getting used to prosperity, was laid firmly at the door of Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
Martin brought the party back from the brink, but the manner in which he did has some echoes with one of Lynch\u2019s foibles.<\/p>\n
Lynch was popular with the public, but not necessarily with his own parliamentary party.<\/p>\n
Bertie Ahern, who was first elected in the 1977 landslide, later wrote in his memoirs that Lynch hardly knew him in the years after that election or even what constituency he represented.<\/p>\n
One incident that Ahern recalled was passing the leader in the corridor of Leinster House and Lynch didn\u2019t even acknowledge him.<\/p>\n
That created the kind of vacuum in which Haughey was able to build his campaign to unseat the aloof Lynch. Martin has always been at pains to stress that he is not a removed or aloof figure. Yet there is much to suggest that he is perceived that way by some members of his parliamentary party.<\/p>\n
It is that perceived characteristic that returned to haunt him this week, when some in his parliamentary party expressed frustration in the wake of the fuel protests. A letter from the three youngest TDs \u2014 James O\u2019Connor, Ryan O\u2019Meara, and Albert Dolan \u2014 pointed out that many of their peers see \u201cno connection between what happens at the ballot box and what follows in Government\u201d.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t explicitly criticise the Taoiseach, but noted that: \u201cToo often today, we find senior colleagues expect us to just explain their government difficulties to our communities. That is not the role we want, nor will we accept it any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
A similar theme emerged from party elders like Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Feargha\u00edl, John McGuinness, and Willie O\u2019Dea. The veteran Limerick TD summed up the sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe seem to have lost the one virtue of which every democracy depends, namely the ability to hear anger before it turns into rebellion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n In any organisation which is malfunctioning, the level of responsibility increases obviously as you go up the line\n <\/p>\n
\u201cSo the leadership must take a good chunk of responsibility for the way this has developed.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Dea is an interesting weather vane, as he has never expressed reservations about Martin and is most likely beyond ambition for promotion by any alternative leader.<\/p>\n
Some 12 years ago, when Martin was two short years into his tenure, his leadership style first came into question.<\/p>\n
When O\u2019Dea was asked about it on Morning Ireland, he said: \u201cI say this with the greatest respect to my colleagues: I look around the table, in my mind\u2019s eye, and I don\u2019t see the messiah. And when I look in the mirror, I don\u2019t see him either.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was then, when Fianna F\u00e1il was battered and bruised. Martin was in the early stages of reviving his pummelled party.<\/p>\n
As those who had survived the 2011 election attempted to pick themselves off the floor, it seemed obvious that he concluded he would have to plan and act with a tight focus.<\/p>\n
The approach served him well as he raised the party from its knees, wore the sackcloth and ashes, and attempted to carve out a smaller niche in the political firmament.<\/p>\n
Issues such as the marriage equality referendum and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution could have presented problems to a party that might have had notions above its station. He ensured that wasn\u2019t to be. Over the course of a decade, his approach \u2014 in terms of leading the party \u2014 was vindicated. He didn\u2019t have a specific power based in the ranks. He did not attract the kind of devotion that some of his predecessors did. His style may have alienated some of them, but it was also one that chimed to some extent with voters beyond.<\/p>\n
Then came the ultimate vindication with the result of the 2024 election, a return to power, a return to being the biggest party, albeit in a very different context to the one that existed in 2011.<\/p>\n
Arrival in the Promised Land can change the game completely. Go ask Moses.<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0Martin\u2019s stewardship since then suggests a form of hubris set in, right from the off, when he supped with Michael Lowry and attempted to let some Independents play for and against opposition parties\n <\/p>\n
The Jim Gavin affair brought frustrations to the surface among the ranks and, this week, there has been a repeat. The ultimate outcome is likely to be a confirmation that Martin will not serve until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n
When Lynch died in 1999, he was buried in St Finbarr\u2019s Cemetery in Cork following a State funeral.<\/p>\n
Customarily, the graveside oration for a deceased Fianna F\u00e1il leader is made by his successor.<\/p>\n
However, in this case, Lynch had selected Desmond O\u2019Malley to do the honours. O\u2019Malley had left the party four years previously to set up the Progressive Democrats.<\/p>\n
The snub was direct and reflected Lynch\u2019s complicated relationship with his party.<\/p>\n
Martin has been more respected than loved within the ranks. His achievements are valued and appreciated right across Fianna F\u00e1il. He is rooted in the party in a manner that Lynch never was.<\/p>\n
But when things get cranky, when the foot soldiers fret about their career and electoral prospects, Martin is more exposed for the very approach he applied in bringing the party back to power. That\u2019s politics, and he knows it more than most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man from Cork had a huge win against the odds. \u201cThe biggest comeback since Lazarus,\u201d according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,63615,61,60,1843,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-404285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-fianna-fail","9":"tag-fuel-prices","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-micheal-martin","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}