RTÉ soccer anchor O’Herlihy had chance to play the presidential game

History could have been so different. Rather than anchoring RTÉ’s soccer coverage during the glory days of Italia ’90, Bill O’Herlihy could have been preparing for a run at the presidency.

The popular broadcaster has revealed he was asked by Joan FitzGerald — the wife of former taoiseach Garret — to be Fine Gael’s candidate in that year’s Áras race, but didn’t take the request seriously.

“She said I was the only person in Fine Gael who could beat Brian Lenihan,” he tells the Irish Examiner today in an interview on politics.

“And I said: ‘Joan, are you joking: me? I wouldn’t have a prospect in the wide world. I’m very flattered, but no thanks.’”

He also revealed he got “a nibble” from Fianna Fáil in the ’70s — despite a staunch Fine Gael family heritage.

“Ironically, in view of the fact that I was consistently Fine Gael in my thinking, I got a nibble — I wouldn’t go any further than that now, because it would be putting it too strongly — from a Jack Lynch contact, wondering if I’d be interested in running for Fianna Fáil in Cork.

“And I said no. There were two reasons for that: First of all, in terms of heritage, I couldn’t have done it, but more importantly, I was living in Dublin and I thought the idea of somebody coming down from Dublin to run in Cork would be a disaster — that I’d get more Christmas cards than votes.”

Mr O’Herlihy set up a public relations firm in 1973 and advised the Fine Gael leadership from the late 1970s to mid-1980s.

He said he never considered running for office. “I’ve enjoyed television immensely and RTÉ has been very good to me. And if it had come down to a career in politics or television, there was no question — television would have won hands down.”