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Candidate: The Truth Behind the Presidential Campaign
secondhand copy with age toning to covers and fore edge, otherwise a good clean copy.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 8, 2026
aka, Fine Gael and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Election Campaign
Was unfortunately born at least eight years too late to appreciate this while it was happening, so I’m happy to be catching up now. 1990 is one of the pivotal years in the history of our state, it’s the moment we finally stepped out of the dark ages and into some kind of future. Between Italia 90 and the election of Mary Robinson, Ireland seemed to finally mature into itself, leading into the next 15-20 years of prosperity before the crash. Robinson’s election was the start of a new chapter in this island’s history in more ways than one.
Is this the best book to represent that significant turning point in our history? Probably not, but I still had a good time with it. It’s very much an eyewitness account of the campaign from the time, and is nowhere near as much of a deep dive as it could be. It also gets uncomfortably tight towards the end following Lenihan’s sacking - two chapters in 10 pages is a bit too fast and furious for me, the Pádraig Flynn debacle alone definitely deserved a little more digging into. It’s unlikely though that we’ll ever get a deeper analysis than what’s here since so much time has since passed and a lot of the main players are no longer with us, so I suppose this is the best we’re going to get.
As for the Eoghan Harris of it all… he’s disgraced himself in the recent past and he doesn’t seem like a particularly pleasant man by all accounts, but watching him weave a complex tapestry out of Robinson’s campaign strategy was a work of art. Genuinely hugely impressive.
Was unfortunately born at least eight years too late to appreciate this while it was happening, so I’m happy to be catching up now. 1990 is one of the pivotal years in the history of our state, it’s the moment we finally stepped out of the dark ages and into some kind of future. Between Italia 90 and the election of Mary Robinson, Ireland seemed to finally mature into itself, leading into the next 15-20 years of prosperity before the crash. Robinson’s election was the start of a new chapter in this island’s history in more ways than one.
Is this the best book to represent that significant turning point in our history? Probably not, but I still had a good time with it. It’s very much an eyewitness account of the campaign from the time, and is nowhere near as much of a deep dive as it could be. It also gets uncomfortably tight towards the end following Lenihan’s sacking - two chapters in 10 pages is a bit too fast and furious for me, the Pádraig Flynn debacle alone definitely deserved a little more digging into. It’s unlikely though that we’ll ever get a deeper analysis than what’s here since so much time has since passed and a lot of the main players are no longer with us, so I suppose this is the best we’re going to get.
As for the Eoghan Harris of it all… he’s disgraced himself in the recent past and he doesn’t seem like a particularly pleasant man by all accounts, but watching him weave a complex tapestry out of Robinson’s campaign strategy was a work of art. Genuinely hugely impressive.
December 28, 2024
Really comprehensive review of the selection of Currie by FG, and the Lenihan tapes affair O’Reilly’s access to primary materials and well informed sources is exceptional on these matters, and her analysis of the politics of the period is both well informed and insightful. The book has less to say about Robinsons selection and campaign, and very strangely ends around the P Flynn affair, giving it just four pages.
Overall a great read
Overall a great read
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews