![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4816590_3_articleinline_IRISH_20President_20_2014115853.jpg\" "\\"Jim")
Jim Gavin’s implosion as a presidential candidate this week sent waves through the political system. Picture: Conor O’Mearain\/PA<\/p>\nOne of the more bizarre comments in a bizarre week of the presidential campaign came from Maria Steen.<\/p>\n
Steen attempted last month to get a nomination to run, but she was unsuccessful. In light of what has now befallen Fianna F\u00e1il candidate Jim Gavin, she suggested that the election should be cancelled and rerun. This would give her another bite at the cherry.<\/p>\n
Is she serious? Does she not realise that her failure to get a nomination was a close escape from a torturous process that has left others bereft, befuddled, emotionally exhausted, a complete nervous wreck? Does she really want to go through that?<\/p>\n
Jim Gavin\u2019s implosion as a presidential candidate this week sent waves through the political system. Fianna F\u00e1il, and in particular Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, was left reeling from the experience, its political nous and capital shredded. Fianna F\u00e1il was made to look like a bunch of amateurs.<\/p>\n
But what of Gavin? He is a man with considerable achievements, both in sport and in public service. This week\u2019s experience must have left him completely bereft and emotionally sunk. There is no doubt that it will be a while before he is fully recovered and equipped to carry on his life. He doesn\u2019t deserve such a blow, but those are the wages of being a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
Jim Gavin’s implosion as a presidential candidate this week sent waves through the political system. Picture: Conor O’Mearain\/PA<\/p>\n
As Fianna F\u00e1il TD James O\u2019Connor put it in a statement he released on the debacle: \u201cSix weeks ago, Jim Gavin was a private citizen and an Irish sporting hero with a passionate commitment to community and the GAA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That sounds like a preamble to a description of a highly-rated citizen who went on to suffer a catastrophic accident or bitter twist of fate. You might well add to such traumatic incidents the experience of running for president.<\/p>\n
Joan Freeman knows all about it. During her career, she has served as a senator and was also the founder of Pieta House, the suicide prevention charity. She ran in 2018 as an Independent candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I did not realise then was that fear would become the strongest emotion of the campaign,\u201d she wrote in The Irish Times earlier this year. \u201cNot ambition, not anger, not even hope \u2014 but fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
That fear was motivated by what exactly would appear in the media the following day, even the following hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Senator](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4816593_3_articleinline_LC_20candidates_2016.jpg\" "\\"Senator")
Senator Joan Freeman, right, ran for president as an Independent candidate in 2018. Picture: Larry Cummins<\/p>\n
Presidential elections in modern times have been largely directed towards complete inventories of all candidates\u2019 histories and character.<\/p>\n
This inventory can involve a trawl right back through a candidate\u2019s life, honing in on an incident or event that ordinarily would be in the past, with no reason to have it excavated. Then, once the buried \u201csecret\u201d has been hauled into the light, it is presented as if it was a nefarious version of the lost arc.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the situation Gavin Duffy found himself in during the 2018 campaign, for which he had received a nomination. Duffy was not a politician, but he had extensive media experience through his own professional life and as a judge in the Irish version of The Apprentice.\n <\/p>\n
During the campaign, a Sunday newspaper revealed that he had been involved in a car crash in 1978 when he was 18 years of age. A motorcyclist had been seriously injured, and Duffy was convicted of careless driving. He had also been uninsured in the vehicle in which he had been travelling, his brother\u2019s car. The whole matter had been dealt with by the courts at the time.<\/p>\n
Yet here it was, excavated to be presented as an exhibit of his character as a now 58-year-old man running for president as if a mistake, albeit a serious one, as a teenager rather than his record over 40 years as an adult in various roles was reflective of his character.<\/p>\n
![\"Gavin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4816596_3_articleinline_DENIS_20gavin_204.jpg\" "\\"Gavin")
Gavin Duffy face questions about a car accident he was involved in as a teenager during his bid for president. Picture: Denis Minihane.<\/p>\n
Duffy was being advised on the campaign by media strategist Richard Moore, who had seven years previously also worked for Sean Gallagher in the 2011 campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing with Gavin and car accident came out of the blue,\u201d Moore says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was going way, way back. At the time, the only thing I thought there might be an issue over was Gavin\u2019s support for the Meath hunt because there were a lot of anti-hunt people opposed to his candidacy on that basis, and you just have to deal with that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pretty quickly, Moore saw the impact that the story was having on Duffy, his demeanour, but most particularly a vital element to any candidate\u2019s campaign: His confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, it had a massive impact on him,\u201d Moore says.<\/p>\n
\n It threw him, knocked his confidence, and unsteadied him. He went from being a good media performer to being a poor media performer\n <\/p>\n
Moore recalls one radio interview where Duffy appeared to be uneasy and not himself. At some point in the interview, he actually brought up the issue of the car accident unprompted. Afterwards, the adviser asked him why he\u2019d done it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he\u2019d been waiting for the question on it the whole time,\u201d Moore says. \u201cThat, of course, had an impact on how he was coming across in the interview.\u201d<\/p>\n
Media performances in presidential elections have an elevated significance. The office at issue has practically no executive powers. There is nothing on policy that can be interrogated in any meaningful way. The electorate is so large, it cannot be humanly canvassed.<\/p>\n
That leaves everything down to character, and one central feature is how the candidate comes across in public. Hence, if you\u2019re losing on air, you\u2019re in serious trouble.<\/p>\n
The scrutiny is such that nothing is off limits, including family. Adi Roche, in the 1997 election, was subjected to what she subsequently described as a \u201cshockingly dirty campaign\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Adi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4816599_3_articleinline_Donal_20de_20Roiste_20File012.jpeg\" "\\"Adi")
Adi Roche, in the 1997 election, was subjected to what she subsequently described as a ‘shockingly dirty campaign’. Picture: Colin Keegan\/Collins<\/p>\n
Roche was then and continues to be the force behind Chernobyl Children Ireland, which caters for children huge affected by the nuclear disaster at the Belarus nuclear facility in 1986. Her brother, D\u00f3nal de R\u00f3iste, had been dismissed from the Defence Forces in 1969 under a cloud, 28 years earlier prior to Roche’s presidential tilt.<\/p>\n
He was never officially told of the reason for his forced retirement, and was never subjected to a court martial, but it was suggested to him that it was to do with an alleged association with republican militants.<\/p>\n
(A review of his case in 2022 finally found that his dismissal was an \u201cunfair process\u201d that was \u201cnot in accordance with the law\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in 1997, the incident was dragged up as if, by association, it represented some negative reflection on his sister\u2019s candidacy. Roche was left with not just her own distress that this was dragged up, but the reality that the family had been dragged into it.<\/p>\n
The media dig deep and long to find nuggets from a candidate\u2019s background. Depending on your point of view, that is either digging the dirt or ensuring that the public are fully informed about the choice they are about to make.<\/p>\n
The nature of the election means that anything which gets uncovered is subject to what Richard Moore calls presidential inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause there is so little to write about, no policy or anything, all shaking hands and kissing babies, in the absence of anything serious, everyone focused on the individual,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo any small, and to be fair, in some instances big, issues become inflated by the focus on the presidency. Some of these issues you wouldn\u2019t bat an eye at them ordinarily, but it\u2019s all inflated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Independent candidates are usually far more in danger of having their past raked over and inflated. Serving, or retired, politicians will be accustomed to some scrutiny so they might see it coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Swinford](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4816602_3_articleinline_Mary_20Davis_20Outstanding_20Contribution_20to_20Sport_20Award_202017_20Pic_.jpeg\" "\\"Swinford")
Swinford native Mary Davis was accused of being a ‘failed Fianna F\u00e1iler’ who had been appointed to several ‘quangos’.\u00a0 Picture: Tom Honan<\/p>\n