by Tom Reddy
One month later Dooley was to phone Gay Byrne’s daughter, who in turn spoke to Byrne. His response was lukewarm and he was to claim later that his daughter had ‘jokingly referred to it once or twice.’
Dooley, as a conduit, served three purposes: an approach to Byrne could be considered informal and unofficial, even though Dooley was a member of the Presidency Committee; it allowed Byrne time to think about the offer; and it kept the party leader at a deniable arm’s length. The danger was that, unless tightly controlled, the approach might become public knowledge before the candidate had fully made a commitment. The public revelation could irk party members as well as the Presidency Committee, but a rejection by the candidate because their cover was blown, or because they decided this was not an offer they could accept, could prove highly embarrassing and, within the party, divisive.
In retrospect, putting Byrne forward as a candidate must have seemed like an obvious choice, a ‘stroke’ even. He was a household name, much-loved among the public, a good communicator and a good candidate.
In Co. Clare you could pick up 4FM. The new radio station broadcast into four cities—Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway—and was aimed at listeners aged forty and older who liked classic hits.
It cost twenty cents to cast a vote in any opinion poll on ‘The David Harvey Show’ on 4FM. Harvey, a highly experienced broadcaster with an easy manner, knew how to engage with his audience for his afternoon chat show, and on Wednesday 3 August he effectually launched a new candidate for the Áras with his provocative question: ‘Who would you trust as the ninth President of Ireland?’
A woman who identified herself simply as Caroline suggested that they should include Gay Byrne, the host of ‘The Late Late Show’, which had dominated the television ratings during its 37-year run on RTE. It was the world’s longest-running chat show. Texters and callers offered other options, including already-declared candidates.
Byrne topped the poll, with 47 per cent, the declared candidate Mary Davis took 16 per cent, the television presenter Mary Kennedy 11 per cent, the journalist Miriam O’Callaghan 9 per cent and the former supermarket owner Feargal Quinn 8 per cent. The pundit, retailer and cocaine-and-prostitute-scandal figure Ben Dunne trailed at 5 per cent, with others picking up just 4 per cent.
On Friday, Byrne was celebrating his birthday, and the latest presenter of ‘The Late Late Show’, Ryan Tubridy, had Byrne as a guest on his morning radio programme on 2FM, on which he was quizzed about his reaction to the phone-in poll. Byrne said that his name
wasn’t even mentioned, and I got 46 per cent, and the nearest one was Mary Davis, at 16 per cent. It was extraordinary, as my name wasn’t put forward at all. It’s quite amazing and complimentary and very nice.
Asked the obvious question—would he run for President?—he gave an open-ended answer.
I would have to take some considerable persuasion. It hasn’t been on my horizon. I would rather go on doing what I am doing with ‘For One Night Only’ [an RTE television interview programme] and ‘The Meaning of Life’ [a religious-philosophical interview programme] and my Lyric FM programme on Sunday afternoon [a jazz DJ programme].
It is kind of encouraging and it is kind of stupefying. I don’t know where it came from or how it came. Let the clamour continue … Could we leave this question and come back to it at a later date and see what happens?
His refusal to rule out making a bid for the Presidency unleashed a storm of media speculation over the coming days. That coverage was to incite speculation within Fianna Fáil that perhaps Byrne could be the talisman for the resurrection of the party.
When Micheál Martin rang him on Saturday evening it was a surprise to Byrne. Martin tantalised him with the offer of another birthday present: the possibility of the keys to Áras an Uachtaráin.
Martin put his offer in the simplest of terms. If Byrne wanted to run as an independent candidate Fianna Fáil would provide the twenty nominations from members of the parliamentary party required to secure a nomination—thus ruling out the gruelling tour of county councils in the hope of securing four nominations.
No time limit for a response was suggested. While there would be media pressure for a response when the offer was eventually made public, there was no political imperative to respond, as nominations would not close until September, which was still some weeks away.
The following day the off-lead front-page story of the Sunday Independent quoted Byrne directly, having interviewed him before Martin’s phone call.
I would have to consider it seriously … But I would have to consult with she who must be obeyed as well, because any mention of presidency would mean a huge disruption in our lives.
It was only days after David Norris had been forced to withdraw from the race, and it was the nearest confirmation that Byrne was open to make a run for the Áras. His comments also suggested that, perhaps dutifully, he would consider making the sacrifice of running and of perhaps taking up office for his country and its people. It was a folksy, considerate, humorous quotation that nodded towards the required self-sacrifice. It was also a considered sound-bite from one of the country’s most respected and experienced communicators. It was duly splashed on the front page, under a picture of Gaybo and a teaser for the opinion poll inside announcing that ‘Gay Byrne gets the Norris vote.’
The newspaper also reported an unnamed Fianna Fáil spokesperson as saying, ‘Gay Byrne would make an excellent candidate.’ But it added that the party had yet to decide whether it would nominate its own candidate or back an independent one.
The withdrawal of Norris, announced the previous Tuesday, gave the Sunday Independent time to commission an opinion poll from Quantum Research on the Norris decision and another on voting intentions. It included declared runners and added the speculative runners, Dana and Gay Byrne.
The Áras race dominated coverage in the best-selling Sunday broadsheet, and the headline over the opinion poll presaged the tone of coverage for the coming days. ‘Gay Byrne is people’s choice although he’s not officially in the race … yet.’
The nationwide opinion poll consisted of a random selection of five hundred homes telephoned by professional researchers. Quantum emphasised that it was was not a phone-in poll in which the possibility existed for political parties and special-interest groups to influence the outcome.
It was a definitive result: Byrne topped the poll, with 34 per cent of the vote. In four previous opinion polls only David Norris had polled higher (and in only one, lower). Norris took 39 per cent on 5 June, then 30 per cent on 19 June, 37 per cent on 3 July, and finally 42 per cent—exactly twice his nearest rival, the newly declared candidate Gay Mitchell. In the August poll that included Byrne, Mitchell had dropped back 6 points to 21 per cent and was trailed by Michael D. Higgins at 16 per cent, with Mary Davis, Seán Gallagher and Dana trailing at 11, 10 and 8 per cent, respectively.
However, inside the paper the potentially more significant quotations about Byrne ‘not having the stomach’ for campaigning or ‘auditioning’ weren’t seized upon for headlines. For Byrne,
as I say, I’m not the sort of person who will get on a bus and go around the country asking people for votes, and I’m not the sort of person who wants to go and be interviewed by county councils. So where that leaves us I don’t know.
This seemed less thought through than his front-page comment, but it clearly suggested that he would prefer an Oireachtas nomination rather than the reversal of his previous role of interviewer to become interviewee.
The following day Bruce Arnold, the well-known Irish Independent columnist, seized on Byrne’s words.
Do we have a new Presidential candidate in Gay Byrne? Characteristically he is putting his toe in the water to see if it is too hot for him, and waiting for the noise of approval that will send him on his way.
His position is an entirely passive one. Everything he has said so far indicates that, while David Norris was the front runner—as he was—Byrne would not be seeking t
he job. With all that changed, it suddenly seems a good idea, half-decided by the opinion polls, a deal that could be clinched by Fianna Fail support. A gentle mindless canter to the Aras would follow.
It was perhaps a harsh judgement on someone who was genuinely considering his options, and it was, as Arnold notes, characteristic of Byrne’s career of feeling the public mood and reflecting that in his unmissable Saturday night television programme and weekly morning radio programme. That nous resulted in him reflecting and expertly understanding society’s zeitgeist and being informed and confident enough to challenge it.
Arnold’s colleague Sam Smyth, an experienced and authoritative political commentator, wrote an article in the Independent setting out the scale of the task facing Byrne and the type of organisation and spending he would need in order to mount a professional campaign. But he too couldn’t help but wonder about Byrne’s commitment. He questioned whether Byrne could put together a team to provide 24-hour media relations, a campaign manager, regional campaign managers, a team of volunteers, researchers, speech-writers, social media campaigners and, crucially, a fund-raiser. He described it as a ‘Herculean task’.
With a deadline of less than three months, Byrne would require almost supernatural powers to put it all together before polling day … Veteran politicians believe Byrne would have little difficulty getting the four local authorities or the 20 politicians required to nominate him as a candidate. Neither would he have a lot of difficulty raising whatever money is required to fund a campaign. But putting together a competent organisation and a credible campaign team would present enormous difficulties, even if he wasn’t facing such a tight deadline.
And then the crunch:
And if he was very serious about running, he would have abandoned his walking holiday and hot-footed it back to Dublin yesterday.
On the day of the 4FM opinion poll both Dana, the Eurovision singer and former presidential candidate, and the GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh confirmed that they were considering allowing their names be put forward for the Áras.
Dana was on a two-week holiday in Los Angeles, but her brother John Brown, who managed her previous campaigns, said she would make a decision on her return. Pressure had mounted on her to run after Norris withdrew his candidacy. According to Brown, she wasn’t
ruling anything in or out. I spoke to her, and it is something that has moved up in her decision-making process. A few politicians have also approached her about running.
Dana (53) ran as independent in 1997, having received the support of five county councils. She polled more than 175,000 first-preference votes, a respectable 14 per cent, to finish third. She was subsequently elected MEP for Connacht-Ulster. When she lost the seat in 2004 she declared with some good humour: ‘Like Schwarzenegger, I’ll be back.’
The Catholic Voice immediately declared for Dana. Its publisher, Anthony Murphy, said:
It is time for a clean pair of hands. We need change and we need a politician we can trust to keep their promises. Dana is emerging as the only choice for President of Ireland.
Gay Byrne’s affection for Co. Donegal, where he had a holiday home and regularly visited, was well known. His summer holidays were carved in stone, and representatives of the media seeking him knew his summer-holiday habits.
The Gay Byrne for President story was a ‘silly season’ gift to the media. It was a showbiz phenomenon, a story hanging on a possible decision about a titan of the television who revelled and played in the spotlight after a lifetime of prompting and exploring major debates about social change, the economy and every other topic that excited human interest.
It was no surprise, then, that every inflection, comment, consideration and opinion poll would add fuel to what was a bonfire of speculation. This wasn’t a story about politics: it was pure showbiz, not only about Byrne but about people who had shared the spotlight with him or who were his glittering celebrity colleagues—and it sold newspapers.
The Irish Daily Star that day, however, was much more encouraging. Its main headline read ‘Gaybo has X factor’, and it quoted the pop mogul Louis Walsh on the front page. Referring to the record-breaking talent programme, Walsh said with his usual effusiveness:
I think he would be impossible to beat in an election. Gaybo has the X factor; I’d love him to get the gig. I hope he’s going to run, because he would definitely be the best candidate out there.
An article inside the paper was provocatively and humorously headlined ‘Louis: Gay would kick Áras with Late Late election bid.’ In an adjoining column the Star continued to show its mischievousness as it described five ‘scandals’ that could ‘Byrne him.’ Knowing that Walsh managed the group Boyzone, the paper cited the debut of the pop sensations on ‘The Late Late Show’, hosted by Byrne, and asked, tongue firmly in cheek:
Six boys were forced into revealing clobber and subjected to strobe lighting to induce an epileptic dance display that scared everyone. Their debut stands as one of the most shocking episodes in Byrne’s career. But is it enough to finish his bid for the Áras?
George Hook, the RTE rugby pundit, Newstalk drive-time presenter and Fine Gael supporter, was his usual popularly opinionated self in another article in the same paper.
The whole thing of the position is becoming a personality contest and that is not what it is about. I think people are thinking that anyone can be President. That is actually crap because the presidency is the third house of the Oireachtas.
Asked if he thought Byrne could be a good President, he replied bluntly:
No, I don’t. Whether we like it or not, this is a quasi-political office.
The following day DonegalDaily.com, a news and magazine web site recently launched by the senior journalists Greg Harkin and Stephen Maguire, reported that Fianna Fáil had ‘finally’ come out and backed Gay Byrne for the Presidency. ‘Mr Byrne, who is on holiday in Dungloe at the moment, admitted that he was “thinking about it” when asked if he planned to run for the Áras.’
They quoted Donegal North-East’s new Fianna Fáil deputy, Charlie McConalogue, a local farmer and former organiser and researcher in Fianna Fáil head office. Before the 2011 general election the party held four of the six seats in the two constituencies in the county; McConalogue now was the only Fianna Fáil candidate elected in the county. He suggested that Byrne would be a ‘great candidate’.
However, it was that same Monday’s edition of the Limerick Leader that revealed that the Clare TD Timmy Dooley had been pressing Gay Byrne’s daughter to ask her to convince him to run for the Áras. It was a news story that would put both Byrne and Martin under pressure now that the offer had become public—Byrne to come under pressure to decide, and Martin, now exposed, to hope that his approach would be successful. A leading member of the party was quoted anonymously in the Limerick Leader as saying that
Timmy has been bombarding her with calls. Gay is one of the five people identified by Fianna Fáil. He first said that at 77 he felt too old but that could all change as the momentum is now with him.
It then quoted the former Government minister and Limerick TD Willie O’Dea, who endorsed Byrne as a candidate.
He has to get a nomination for President, and if that is the case I think that we could do it for him in the morning. I don’t think we would have any problem with it.
His party colleague in the adjoining constituency of Limerick County, Niall Collins TD, said, ‘He is the most favoured candidate.’
As every pundit or celebrity in the country, whether a-league or z-league, rushed to have their opinion aired or to let it be known that they were available if the country called, it seemed that the only person in the country who remained silent on the issue was the Fianna Fáil leader, who remained in isolation as he continued his family holiday in west Cork.
Clearly conscious of the publicity storm they had created and of its profile-raising potential for a new station, 4FM organised another opinion poll on Monday the 8th. The results were perhaps pr
edictable and influenced by the blanket positive coverage of Gaybo as a presidential candidate. A staggering 58 per cent of texters to the station put him at the top of the poll. The Ryan Tubridy show on 2FM also ran a text opinion poll on the same day, which showed that 54 per cent of listeners wanted him to run for the Presidency.
The following day Byrne, who had now returned to Dublin from his holiday to consult family, friends and advisers, told the Irish Independent: ‘That means 46 per cent don’t want me to run. I’m talking to people, hearing what they have to say, then I will decide what I’m doing.’
The Irish Daily Mail trumpeted the 4FM poll on Tuesday: ‘Go on, give us Gaybo’, it headlined its front page. However, on the letters page of the same paper Dr Bernadette Flanagan of Buncrana, Co. Donegal, wrote to set out a series of qualifications for the office of President, including the ability to act as guardian of the Constitution, international political experience, compassion and humility. She said she had found the ideal candidate in Rosemary Scallon (Dana), who she had met as chairperson of a meeting of European delegates in Brussels. Then she gave sub-editors and commentators a future hostage to fortune and humour when she finished her letter by saying, ‘Don’t dismiss her as the Lark in the Park.’
The morning papers carried numerous endorsements of Byrne, which had been canvassed by reporters. The best-selling author Maeve Binchy said, ‘He has a huge rapport with the people of Ireland.’ His RTE colleague Jimmy Magee, the sports broadcaster, admitted that Byrne’s age could be a drawback but offered his support, saying that ‘Gay would be a an excellent communicator, a great public speaker—great at working an audience in the old show-business sense.’ The Donegal country-and-western star Daniel O’Donnell said, ‘I can’t think of anyone who would represent us better.’