The seven-day grind that helps Mary over her grief
Carissa Casey on the female TD with sights on the summit in a 'man's party'
It's a testament to Mary Hanafin's diplomatic skills that she was first out with a leadership bid for Fianna Fáil last week while stoutly defending the current Government. Few of her cabinet colleagues could have pulled off such a gentle stab for the top job.
She's a rank outsider. Her pernickety school-teacher demeanour hasn't always endeared her to the Fianna Fáil rank and file. But as she herself once remarked: "I've come to expect the unexpected, the way my life has gone."
Beneath the capable if sometimes prissy stereotype, friends claim there is a warm-hearted woman, who works tirelessly for her constituency and whose own personal troubles have given her a deep sense of connection with the suffering of others.
If she is successful -- and given the fear of a Fianna Fail wipe-out in the next election, nothing can be ruled out --Hanafin's leadership would herald a kind of 'back to the future' era for Fianna Fáil. True, she would be the first woman to lead what is generally seen as a man's party but Hanafin, the non-drinking, non-swearing, committed Catholic, has more in common with party founder éamon de Valera than any of the recent crop of leaders or her rivals for the job.
The daughter of Fianna Fáil stalwart and radical pro-lifer Des Hanafin, she made up her mind at a young age that politics was her passion. Her family were ostensibly financially comfortable, owning the then well-known Thurles hostelry and music venue, The Anner Hotel. But her father's drinking -- he has been on the dry for many years now -- created havoc with the family finances. "He had it (the Anner) drunk out by the time I was 10," Hanafin told Magill a few years ago.
"If someone is drinking then there's no money to spare. When the hotel was lost, my mother went to work in the tourist office," she added.
She trained as a teacher and worked for several years at Sion Hill College in Blackrock, Dublin. In 1997 she ran for and was elected to the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown constituency winning the seat back for Fianna Fail from the Progressive Democrats. Within two years, then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern gave her a junior ministry.
In 2003 her husband of 18 years éamon Leahy, a senior counsel with the Morris Tribunal, died suddenly. It is an event from which friends claim, and she herself sometimes admits, she has never fully recovered. At the time she was chief whip of the party, a rising star but little known to the public.
A year later, when Ahern made her Education Minister, she describes bursting into tears. Change is something she still finds difficult without the comforting presence of her beloved husband. "There are times when I feel very lonely and very alone," she said on Miriam O'Callaghan's radio show.
She confesses her job was her salvation and she welcomed the seven-day grind of a TD. Hanafin's commitment to her constituency is vital since she is one of a great number of Fianna Fáil TDs who are in danger of losing their seats. And, as one political insider pointed out, a leadership bid would boost her profile and help come election day.
She holds four clinics a week and, every year since she was elected, has produced a budget information leaflet which many constituents now request.
Pat Quinn, an English teacher at Sion Hill and long-time friend of Hanafin's, says she attends every small function she's invited to in the constituency. "She's at all the school musicals and fundraisers," says Quinn.
She's fun, according to Quinn. Her party piece is the Mary Hopkin's hit 'Those Were The Days My Friend'. For Hanafin, by all accounts an excellent singer, the song presumably expresses something of the very personal loss she suffered when her husband died.
The rest of us might think instead of that golden time when Ireland was a glittering example of economic genius. Back then Hanafin's 'firm but fair' persona might not have worked for a population giddy with new money. But times have changed and perhaps a touch of steely school room discipline would provide much-needed reassurance to a party, and a country, on the verge of meltdown.
Irish Independent
