Fine Gael should look back on the lessons it learnt 25 years ago

JUST before Christmas, while rummaging through a secondhand bookshop, I found a copy of Hiding Behind A Face - Fine GaelUnder FitzGerald.

First published by Gill and Macmillan in 1986, and written by Stephen O’Byrnes, it tells the story of the transformation in Fine Gael’s fortunes under Garret FitzGerald.

By the time the book was published, O’Byrnes had become press director for the newly formed Progressive Democrats, but when writing the book he was a journalist.