I don’t get to blog these days as often as I’d like as I am flat out between work, college, family and for the past three weeks, the election campaign.

Michael Portillo has his ‘moment’ in 1997

However I wanted to post up some thoughts before the votes are cast and counted this weekend. Firstly I am delighted to see a new leader sweeping clean and I think Martin has had a great couple of weeks since he first took the reins, only a short few weeks ago. I supported him since his first move started and was delighted someone had finally found the courage of his convictions and cried halt. Brian Cowen was by no means a bad man, but he was, most unfortunately, a poor leader at the top, and he simply lacked the necessary mojo to lead the country or the party though these times of crisis. On the latter point it still amazes me when people talk about Brian Cowen putting the party first, when under his watch the party plummeted from 40% (RedC, May 08) to 8% (QR, Jan 11) just before he moved aside.

Moving swiftly on..  the battle for Fianna Fáil in this election is to be the lead party of opposition and to ensure relevance in the new world. In a curious way I am possibly more hopeful for the future of the party now than I have been for some time. Having spoken to many like minded party supporters and activists around the country, we look forward to the opportunity in opposition of rebuilding the party, of restoring past values, of restoring internal democracy, making the grass roots relevant again, removing the disconnect from those in high office and of coming back with a party we can be proud of in time for 2016.

When Micheál Martin gave his rallying cry on Sunday in Navan, he invoked the spirit of Aiken, Lemass, Markiewicz and other greats of Fianna Fáil and Irish history. These may not be fashionable in some media circles but they still remind those in Fianna Fáil of why we started in the first place. Martin has reenergised the troops and held out the promise – it is up to every member now to carry that forward, into the election and beyond.

Of course the party will lose seats. And in some cases it will be no harm. It used to be said you could stick a donkey on a Fianna Fáil ticket and they would get elected. I never saw those days myself! In fact when I ran in 09 I would say I had to work a lot harder for every vote than most other candidates in the same race. In many cases I won votes in spite of party affiliation, rather than because of. I have a friend used be an activist in Democratic Left. He was not surprised when they went on to take over the Labour party – because of their very low base, DL candidates had to be extra strong and especially capable to get elected. There is an element at the moment where some ‘Donkeys’ may still do it for Fine Gael and Labour, with the wind at their backs, but Fianna Fáil candidates will need to be seriously good to make it in future – and that is exactly how it should be.

The party is overdue a refresh and I am delighted to see former Ógra FF colleagues such as Averil Power in Dublin North East, Charlie McConalogue in Donegal North West and Dara Calleary in Mayo, all out on the pitch and doing well. (Also surprise late entrant, my Kings Inns classmate Lisa Chambers, in Mayo as the youngest female candidate of GE2011). When I spoke a few posts back about how I defined the party these were the people I had in mind – my own party circle, people whom I know to be of great ability and potential, and more relevant to me, then and now, than most Ministers. It is also inspirational to see people like Dr. Hillery in Clare enter the fray, a name synonymous with great times past and a man who stepped out of a comfortable medical career to keep the flame alive.

A few commentators recently have spoken about a “Portillo moment”, an image that would define the election, where a party stalwart lost their seat in a shock but symbolic defeat. The commentators suggested Mary Coughlan as this Portillo figure. I disagree. The only Portillo moment would be if none of the above were elected ; from 26^th Feb on Fianna Fáil must be about the future not the past, in personnel, policies and  practice.

Over the past few years, months and especially weeks support for Fianna Fáil has plummeted to the point where many wonder whether it has a future beyond the next election. There are many who celebrate this demise amongst them many who were opposed from the beginning and who may have wished for this day for a long time. However there are many others harboring genuine grievance who despair that things have come to this point. Nobody in or outside of Fianna Fáil can be happy at some of the events that have taken place in recent times, although we may differ on why certain actions were necessary. We may also differ on how Ireland fared as a country during the years of Fianna Fáil rule and on the many achievements which must go in the credit column along with the far more heralded mistakes accumulating on the debit side of the page.

This post is not intended to delve into those matters in detail however, more to answer a question that is often raised, as to who is Fianna Fáil, and perhaps these days, how can they be supported?

The theme of this post is to give my view of Fianna Fáil, who and what it is, and what I wish it can become in future. The gap between the media and sometimes public stereotype of the party and mine and ordinary members experience is worth highlighting and may also help illustrate why and how members do support the party in good times and bad.

A concept I have been musing over recently is one of “collegiate loyalty” and it was expressed very well by a friend and party member recently when he said the reason he is in Fianna Fáil is the people. The people he meets and knows in Fianna Fáil and with whom he finds common ground on so many areas. I think this explanation is spot on and is akin to an explanation that I gave to a workmate recently, that you don’t just walk away from family. More to the point when a member of the public thinks of FF, more than likely Brian Cowen or Noel Demsey or some other senior Minister comes to mind ; for myself and many grass roots members it is our friends, fellow members and activist colleagues who define the party and with whom we have far far more interaction and debate with than the Taoiseach or some abstract figures we may encounter once a year at a party function.

Fianna Fáil at membership level is like any other organisation in the country consisting of a cross-section of the population, with perhaps an additional element of volunteerism and public service in that almost every cumann member I know is also involved in a plethora of community groups from GAA to Tidy Towns to Community Councils to Parish Committees to Meals on Wheels to St. Vincent de Paul to Residents Associations and everything else in between. A kind of political rotary club. The occupations include everything from teachers, lawyers, software engineers, butchers, builders, tradespeople, shopkeepers, academic researchers, project managers, mechanics, full time students, blue collar, white collar, green collar everything in between. A cross section of society. Just to take one example, one lifelong cumann member has spent every Friday evening for the past 20 years or more (voluntarily) using his tractor to trim the grass of the local GAA field prior to training and matches each weekend. The same man is to be found every Summer’s Saturday knee deep in bedding plants or topsoil as he labours around the village for the Tidy Towns each May till August in preparation for the judging. It should be remembered the vast majority of these members are not and have no desire to be public representatives but believe in “getting stuck in”, doing their bit for their communities.

At national level I have another circle of Fianna Fáil friends dating back to Ógra days on national party committees or friends made in Trinity students’ union whom have all stayed in touch. Any one of this wide circle of acquaintances and friends and neighbours are the people who come to mind when I think of Fianna Fáil, far ahead of any thoughts of the Taoiseach or the figures at the helm.

(On a side note many contemporaries in the latter circle in particular, also fought elections in recent times, being of my own generation coming of age to do so in the last couple of years and having first outings. To the detriment of the organisation (and I believe the electorate) most did not make it but most tellingly almost all campaigns, win lose or draw were funded from personal budgets or borrowings, there was usually some contribution from the local party but there were certainly no brown envelopes or hefty corporate donations winging their way to any candidates of my acquaintance. Again if there was a culture of corporate collaboration it did not pervade beyond the peak of the pyramid.)

The tragedy of Fianna Fáil in recent years, and it pre-dates Brian Cowen, is that these voices have gone unheard. The cumann structures and the party organisation has been turned from a democratic member-centric organisation to a factory floor type workforce for an aloof central committee in the offices on the top floor.

There may be one side-effect of the party doldrums that might even make it all worth it in the end, and that is the casting off of ‘carpet-baggers’ and mé féiners who gravitated in the past towards what was the natural party of power and have often exerted a disproportionate dominance over the party whole, not least as their inevitable episodes of excess spilled over to flood the whole party in their wake each time.

When people talk of saving Fianna Fáil and rebuilding, it is the pyramid beneath that needs to be saved and to find voice. It is the re-assertion of the body politic, of the ordinary and often inspiring membership that need to take precedence and that must be the goal of any rebuilding. The exact shape, size and policies of the emergent organisation require attention and definition but the approach must be inclusive and democratic. The legion of the rearguard needs to step out from the rear and go front centre and that will certainly be a party worth saving.