This is the first of a number of extracts from my book, 'Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry's Political Dynasties' (O'Brien Press, 2011) which I hope to publish here over the coming weeks. Hope you enjoy the read (and buy the book as a result!). This is from a chapter entitled 'When the well runs dry':
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| Michael Moynihan |
Not every
political dynasty has the required new generation to turn to when its last
serving member dies, resigns or loses their seat at the hands of the electorate.
This was very much the case when Labour’s Breeda Moynihan Cronin failed to defend
her Kerry South seat at the 2007 general election against a resurgent Fine Gael
and their successful candidate Tom Sheahan. No obvious successor from within
her family had emerged when almost two years earlier, she had announced that
she would step down at the election on health grounds. Having served in the
Dáil since 1992, following her father Michael Moynihan, who was the first ever
Labour TD in Kerry South, the announcement of early retirement signalled the
end of the Moynihan dynasty and prompted an internal crisis in the Labour Party
organisation. Moynihan Cronin was the first woman elected for Labour in Kerry
and only the second woman ever elected in the Kerry South constituency after
Honor Mary Crowley of Fianna Fáil.
She had maintained an unbroken term in the
Dáil since 1992, continuing in the footsteps of her father who had contested the
first of his seven elections in 1954 and was first elected in 1981. Her
election in 1992 prompted the Sunday
Tribune to comment that ‘the great tradition of Irish political dynasties
has fresh initiation rites with the daughter of the retiring Labour TD Michael
Moynihan holding his seat.’[i] Moynihan
Cronin was one of the many female Labour TDs that swept into office on the
so-called ‘Spring Tide’ of 1992 but was one of the few of that group to
maintain a presence in the Dáil beyond one term unlike ministers such as Niamh
Bhreathnach and Eithne Fitzgerald. The failure of Fine Gael to make a break-through
in Kerry South since former junior minister, Michael Begley lost his seat in
1989 was also a factor in allowing Moynihan Cronin to remain the sole
Opposition deputy in the constituency for much of her Dáil career.[ii]
In October
2005, Moynihan Cronin informed a shocked meeting of her party members in
Killarney that her health would not allow her to put her name forward as a
candidate at the next general election. Even in her early years in the Dáil
after 1992, she had battled with ill health but had managed to maintain a sufficient
presence and work-rate to hold on in 1997. This time, it was different however –
she was leaving politics for good. The declaration was a body blow to the party
in Kerry South, which had failed to win any County Council seat in the
constituency at the local elections of the previous year. Trade union official and
party chairman in Kerry South, Andrew McCarthy, who had been co-opted to
replace Moynihan Cronin when the dual mandate was abolished in 2003 had been
defeated at the 2004 poll by Tom Sheahan, who went on to win Fine Gael’s first
Dáil seat in the constituency in eighteen years.
Moreover, with no other member
of the Moynihan dynasty offering to step into the breach, and with Moynihan
Cronin having no children herself, the fear in Labour circles was that somebody
from outside the family would not hold sufficient sway with the electorate. Andrew
McCarthy admits that the initial ambition was to seek out another family member
with two of the TD’s brothers, Maurice and Michael in the frame but it wasn’t
quite as simple as that: ‘Maurice was talked of as a possible nominee but he
was outside the constituency. Michael was the only other one living in the
constituency but he didn’t seem interested.’
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| Breeda Moynihan Cronin |
The absence
of a Moynihan candidate presented a challenge for Labour that many party
organisations struggle to deal with in such situations – what to do when the dynastic
well runs dry. In the same way as parties turn to another family member when a
dynasty seems in jeopardy at by-elections, frantic efforts were made to coax
one of the TD’s four siblings to enter the fray but to no avail. The crisis saw
the party consider a number of celebrity-type candidates, most notably the
All-Ireland winning Kerry footballer, Seamus Moynihan, (no relation) who
expressed no interest in a life in politics at meetings with the then Labour
Leader, Pat Rabbitte. None of the candidates who had contested the previous
local elections were considered strong enough outside of their own electoral
areas to have constituency-wide appeal.
Ultimately, the party was left with
little option but to extend the olive branch to its old nemesis and former
councillor, Michael Gleeson, who had departed Labour in acrimony fifteen years
previously. Some Labour activists were of the view that as a sitting councillor
on the left of politics, Gleeson represented the best prospect for electoral
success. He had managed to comfortably retain a seat on Killarney Town Council
and Kerry County Council since the split with Labour. It was also argued that
with Moynihan Cronin off the political pitch it represented a golden
opportunity to heal the rift that had damaged Labour in the early 1990s and to
bring back into the fold some of the best political strategists that had
followed Gleeson out of the party. ‘The reality is that, as it stands, Labour
has nobody else capable of winning a seat. We know it and Gleeson knows it,’ a
party source told The Kingdom at the
time.[iii] Not
only was an approach to Gleeson proposed, a formal merger of Labour with his
South Kerry Independent Alliance was also actively canvassed, a move that
attracted ‘no dissenting voice’ at the annual general meeting of Labour in
Kerry South in March 2006.[iv] Gleeson
courteously but firmly rejected being courted by his former colleagues however
and discussions with Pat Rabbitte failed to persuade him to change his mind.
Many believe that it was Gleeson’s organisation, many of whose members remained
hostile to Labour locally that prevented Gleeson from taking the plunge.
[i] Sunday
Tribune, 29 November 1992.
[ii]
Michael Begley from Dingle was a Fine Gael TD for Kerry South from 1969 to
1989. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government from
1973 to 1975 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance from 1975
to 1977. A long-serving member of Kerry County Council, Begley had
unsuccessfully contested the 1965 general election and the 1966 by-election in
Kerry South.
[iii] The
Kingdom,30
March 2006.
[iv]
The Kingdom, 6 April 2006.
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