When Jim Gavin was manager of the Dublin senior football team – guiding them to an historic five-in-a-row – he was known for how thorough, how detailed and how comprehensive he was in every facet of their preparation.
In Portlaoise on Thursday morning as he canvassed ahead of the Presidential Election on October 24, you could see those elements coming to the fore.
This was certainly not a rushed canvass. He arrived in Lyster Square just after 9.30am and it was close to 2pm when his team pulled out of the Laois GAA grounds and headed onto Carlow for the next stop on his campaign trail.
Across the morning and into the early afternoon he pressed the flesh with young, old and everyone in between. And while Fianna Fáil’s man in the race isn’t a career politician in the same way as Independent Catherine Connollly or Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys, he is at ease meeting and greeting.
He gives everyone he meets considerable time, has a strong and lingering hand shake and makes connections quickly.
His GAA background is undeniable, as an All Ireland winning player with Dublin in 1995 and as manager of Dublin’s All Ireland-winning teams in 2013 and 2015-2019. In more recent times, as chairman of the Football Review Committee, he has overseen the transformation of the game through a range of playing rule changes.
There are many obvious success stories, but countless political candidates with strong GAA credentials have tried and failed on election day.
Yet the GAA is an organisation embedded in every corner of the country, rural and urban. It’s a great door-opener. It takes no length of time to make a connection.
As he’s marched around Mulhall’s SuperValu, where long-serving Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming and Portlaoise-based councillor Catherine Fitzgerald are calling the shots, he’s told straight away that proprietor Ger Mulhall is a proud Ballyroan GAA man.
Outside the post office, camogie star Alice Walsh from The Harps arrives for a planned photo with the All Ireland trophy that Laois won in Croke Park in August.
In Hogan’s Butchers, he meets legendary commentator Jack Nolan who he recognises and asks straight away about local GAA news. Jack tells him that the Courtwood footballers are the story of the year in Laois and are into a county final.
“Courtwood,” says Jim, trying to make a connection. “Fergal Byron’s club,” says Jack. Gavin played against Byron. “And his son Matthew is kicking two-pointers for sport,” adds Jack, the same two-pointers that Jim’s committee introduced.
At the bottom of Main Street, outside Square Coffee, he meets former GAA president Liam O’Neill from Trumera.
In Eugene Deegan’s barber’s shop he marvels at the GAA memorabilia on the wall. And in the parish centre, which is packed, there are more links.
He has a hug for former Laois player Greg Ramsbottom, who he played alongside for a brief spell in Gavin’s home club, Round Towers of Clondalkin.
Gavin’s father is a Clare man and there, literally with the Clare colours around his neck, is Sean Cotter, a native of Doonbeg, and a former bank manager in Portlaoise, whose family have had a strong involvement with GAA in the town.
Another proud Clare native on hand is Mick Lillis, who Jim greets like a long-lost friend too. Also drinking tea is Seamus Fitzgerald, who has a great chat with him too. Seamus’s wife Catherine has been a Fianna Fáil councillor since 1999 but both she and Sean Fleming admit that this is the first time they could get Seamus out to a party event.
He meets the boss himself, Monsignor John Byrne, and parish centre manager Declan Kelly, who plays golf with a friend of Gavin’s.
Also delighted to meet him is Kelly Byrne from Stepaside in Dublin, but now living in Stradbally. She’s in the parish centre for the Ready Steady Play with her nine-month-old son Tadhg and tells Gavin of her connection to former Dublin player Paul Mannion and that she works with Stephen Cluxton’s wife Joanne.
There are plenty of party stalwarts too – like former TD and Minister John Moloney, former Fianna Fáil parliamentary staff member Mary Kirwan from Borris-in-Ossory, Tim Kearney from Ballybrittas and Dan Carmody from Portlaoise. The likes of those have canvassed in more elections than they can care to remember.
Councillors Paschal McEvoy, John Joe Fennelly and Padraig Fleming are around for the duration of the canvass too while Joey Kennedy and Naeem Iqbal – candidates in last year’s Local Elections – and General Election candidate Austin Stack are all suited and booted too, and proudly wearing stickers declaring their support.
From the parish centre it’s on to the UN Vets base on Tower Hill, a converted council house that serves a social base for former defence force personnel who served overseas. In a building that is part museum, part community centre, they gather every Thursday morning to have breakfast together.
Though no photos are permitted here, there is plenty of engagement with Gavin, who is of course a former member of the Air Corps. One man tells him he served in the Congo in the 1960s.
It’s then on to the neighbouring Dunamase College, where many of the teenagers are genuinely excited by his impromptu arrival. The entourage even gatecrash Ms Brereton’s second year English class.
After that unscheduled stop, it’s onto the Gaelscoil where a couple of hundred students, from 2nd to 6th class, are waiting impatiently in the hall.
Principal Dominic Ó Braonáin, a Tipperary native who is a local GAA referee, is able to tell Gavin that he attended a rules seminar, facilitated by Gavin, earlier in the year. The kids have a range of questions, in Irish, that Gavin answers in English and when that’s finished, he signs multiple autographs before eventually getting away, leaving through the front door and high-fiving the long line of pupils on his way back to the car.
A quick media interview at the entrance to the Gaelscoil is then followed by his last stop: the Laois GAA grounds and offices at O’Moore Park.
He meets county secretary Niall Handy, Games Manager Shane Keegan, both of whom he knows as well, and full-time coaches Dan Butler, Donie Brennan and Jason Woods.
The photo opportunity here is beneath a massive image of Ian Fitzgerald lifting the Leinster trophy in 2003. “Another good Town man,” declares Catherine Fitzgerald, who had earlier given Gavin a potted history of the Laois GAA Centre of Excellence, which was previously the home of Portlaoise GAA.
The travelling party with Gavin – which includes a driver and a couple of branded cars with Fianna Fáil staff – then head for Carlow.
Among their stops there is a visit to Tyndall College, a secondary school outside the town whose principal is Gerry McGill, the Donegal native who has been involved with numerous Laois teams over the past 20 years.
Whether all of those links can translate to votes is another thing but he did describe the Portlaoise response as ‘phenomenal’, a description that is hard to argue with.
“This campaign is gathering real momentum,” he added.
In GAA parlance, with the election not until October 24, we’re not even close to half time yet.
But the ball is in and the game is most certainly on.
The Presidential Election takes place on Friday, October 24.
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