The End of Jim Gavin and Probably Michéal Martin

Fail to Prepare - Prepare to Fail.

Jim Gavin’s presidential campaign didn’t end so much as it imploded in slow motion, like an expensive fireworks display doused with a bucket of damp sand. It began with lofty talk of “lifelong public service” and “love of country” and ended with the words “failed to register a tenancy”. The whole thing was Fianna Fáil’s grand celebrity gamble—Micheál Martin’s hand-picked champion, the fresh face to outshine the party stalwarts—and it collapsed into a swamp of €3,000 teneancy repayment scandal to a Sunday World journalist who was his tenant at the time. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the rental debacle that brought down Jim Gavin as Fianna Fáils presidential nominee. This story isn’t over yet.

The surest sign that Michéal Martin’s leadership is in trouble is when party insiders start using words like “mortifying” and “complete and utter fuck up” in conversations with the press. Michéals funeral rites have begun early. When Fianna Fáil sources are bluntly saying the…