Tommy Martin: What would electing Jim Gavin as president say about us?
Jim Gavin watchse a GAA Football Review Committee trial game in Abbotstown. Pic: Dan Clohessy
It says something about Jim Gavinâs capabilities that the highest public office in the land might be a waste of his talents.
You can understand why some within Fianna FĂĄil, in search of viable candidates to represent the party in the upcoming presidential election, alighted on the name of the man who led Dublin to six All-Ireland football titles as manager, miraculously fixed Gaelic football as head of the FRC and, oh yeah, also managed to squeeze in a career as a senior Air Corps officer, trained commercial pilot and, latterly, chief operations officer of the Irish Aviation Authority.
This is the party, after all, that hasnât contested a presidential election since it put forward Mary McAleese in 1997. The next time the gig came up for grabs was in 2011, by which time Fianna FĂĄilâs popularity levels in Ireland were on a par with the Oliver Cromwell Appreciation Society.
Wisely they ducked out of the contest that time, but now, full sure the electorate have forgiven them for allegedly wrecking the country â the silly gooses! - they reckon itâs time to re-enter the fray to find Irelandâs favourite smiley person weâd like to let live for free in a big house.
Being Fianna FĂĄil, they are in it to win it, hence the name of the winningest manager in recent Gaelic football history being whispered at the urinals in the Leinster House bar and other places where Irish politicians like to gather.
Reports say Gavinâs GAA connections, his exemplary career in public service and potential ability to carry the vote in Dublin make him the ideal candidate. Against that is his lack of political experience. Elite GAA championship football is like croquet on the lawn compared to the bloodsport of Irish presidential elections, where, with no policies to discuss, the winner is the one whose personal life and character gets hacked to pieces the least.
While Gavin is noted for his extreme sangfroid, a public career spent fielding polite inquiries from Marty Morrissey may not prepare him for the harsh glare of presidential election TV debates, where you might face hostile cross-examination by Claire Byrne for having once failed an NCT or eaten someone elseâs yoghurt in the work canteen.
The Gavin speculation shows how the Irish presidency has changed in recent decades. A cushy sinecure for political good ole boys for much of the history of the state, since Mary Robinson it has become something more airy-fairy and aspirational.
Robbo was symbolic of a nation embarking on a process of progressive change, Mary Mac all about building bridges with our friends in the north and Michael D was the lefty poet type we needed in the face of the humiliations of the financial crash.
Note that these are the people Ireland voted into a symbolic job that carries little to no power. To actually run the country, weâve consistently elected the same sort of centre-right career politicos we reckon will keep the taxes low and the Yanks pumping the cash in.
To borrow a line from Oliver Stoneâs movie version of the life of Richard Nixon, spoken by Tricky Dicky while he stares at a portrait of JFK: when we look at the Ăras we see what we want to be, when we look at Leinster House we see what we are.
What would electing Jim for Prez say about us now? That we idealise quiet excellence, extreme efficiency and a sort of irreproachable Spartan integrity. Yeah, dream on Ireland! In any event, Jim wasnât the symbolism type during his Dublin reign. While he was well capable of doffing his cap to the cityâs restless soul while celebrating another Sam, he didnât necessarily embody the capital in the way Mick OâDwyer might have done Kerry, or Brian Cody did with Kilkenny.
Dublin icons tend to be tragic troubadour types. Christy Dignam of Aslan, God be good to him, is the latter-day successor to this lineage. Previous generations built statues to Phil Lynott, Brendan Behan, Luke Kelly and Molly Malone, the latter condemned not alone to die of a fever, but in death to have her bronze likeness groped by stag parties for all posterity.
No, Gavinâs genius in his time as Dublin manager was as a self-described âfacilitatorâ, putting the systems and scenarios in place for a golden generation to flourish. But it was in his role with the Football Review Committee that Gavin showed his ultimate talent as a man who gets things done, and perhaps his unsuitability for a job which famously bars you from doing anything at all, other than shaking hands with rugby players and planting the odd tree.
Anyone who followed its work will vouch for the FRC as a bravura demonstration of the implementation of change largely alien to any other aspect of Irish public life. Under Gavinâs chairmanship, in little over a year the FRC turned Gaelic football from a sport which often made spectators long for the sweet relief of glaucoma, into a thrilling spectacle worthy of its place at the centre of Irish cultural life.
The natural conclusion is to wonder what other broken things that Jim Gavin could fix. It might be a stretch to put him in charge of the health service or the housing debacle, although when you see who is currently in charge of those things, maybe not.
But there must be some job needing doing in this little country of ours for a man of his abilities, rather than putting him in a gilded cage in the Phoenix Park. The presidency is the ultimate honour for any Irish citizen, but frankly, Jim, youâre overqualified.
