Prime minister at 34: Youngest PM

Once upon a time people measured their place in life’s cycle by comparisons with the local policeman. If that officer, he or she, seemed impossibly callow then the time had come to accept that time had moved on and that the first flush of youth had indeed faded.

The relative scarcity of gardaí on the beat has made that comparator less available than it once was but there are others. Ireland’s captain at the recent World Cup in Japan, Rory Best, is 37, an exceptional age for an international athlete.