Showtime: The Inside Story of Fianna Fáil in Power

by Pat Leahy

In boom and in bust, Ireland has been led by Fianna Fáil. Showtime gets behind the party's remarkable dominance of the political landscape and leading political writer Pat Leahy, tells the gripping story of how it won, kept and has used power since the mid-1990s.

Showtime explains how Fianna Fáil operated during the boom years - from November 1994, when Bertie Ahern assumed leadership of a battered party, expecting to become Taoiseach but instead finding himself cast into opposition, to the day he relinquished the party leadership on the brink of the bust. For a decade after it achieved power in 1997, Fianna Fáil led the government during an unprecedented economic boom and enjoyed riches beyond the wildest dreams of any previous administration. Showtime reveals how government really worked in these years: the favours, the grudges, the backroom deals, the political strokes, the policy compromises and the choices that have led the country to where it is today.

Showtime is politics in the raw: the exciting, enlightening and sometimes disturbing story of a remarkable era that changed the face of modern Ireland.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Current Affairs

236 pages, Paperback

First published August 27, 2009

Reviews

[George Morrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could be more positive about this book.

To begin, I need to clarify that this is a book intended for the domestic Irish market. If you don't know what the Taoiseach or Dáil Éireann are, Pat Leahy will not be explaining them to you. While the jargon can easily be googled, there are quirks and eccentricities that won't be obvious to anyone from outside Ireland or who doesn't live there. It's a shame because these years are a crucial part of modern Irish history.

Essentially, Ireland has two major political parties: Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael. In addition, there are a host of smaller parties which often go into coalition with FF or FG to form a government.

This book covers the Fianna Fáil-led governments from 1997-2010. At the time, Fianna Fáil was led by Bertie Ahern, the youngest Taoiseach in history at the time. It wouldn't be absurd to compare Fianna Fáil to New Labour in the UK or Ahern to Tony Blair.

To begin with the positives, Leahy covers in detail how Ahern modernised Fianna Fáil's candidate selection and campaigning operations in the 1990's after the party lost to Fine Gael in 1992. Leahy's prose is elegant and he gets a few jokes in. It's far from dry. Leahy's portrayal of Ahern is of a man interested in winning power much more than wielding it which is where the comparison with Blair ends.

The book is sadly quite short. There's little detail of anything the governments in question did aside from participating in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, ratcheting up social spending and cutting taxes. That's about all of the detail. There's virtually nothing on health, infrastructure, the Lisbon treaty, etc...

I get the impression that Leahy admires Ahern but this doesn't interfere with his detailing the difficulties Ahern faced with the Mahon tribunal investing the... irregularities in his accounts.

Overall, it's a good read. It could have done with being twice as long if I'm being honest with a primer on how Irish politics works. I'm Irish so I'd no issue with it but I wouldn't recommend this to an American or a British person because of the aforementioned mores of Irish politics unless they did a bit of googling first.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leahy is a hell of a writer and if you’ve listened to the Inside Politics summer series over the last few years you will have heard his impressions - SO fun to read stuff in this book as if they’re his impressions.

A great read. Leahy doesn’t impose - he brings you with him and into the corridors of power. Books relying on unnamed sources can be hit or miss but this is a smash, his sources are so, so forthright and it doesn’t take much reading between the lines anyway.

Definitely one for the anoraks but if you’re in any way engaged with Irish politics you have to read it - fascinating insights into FF in their pomp. It’s aged well, in that you get reminded of the early careers of the likes of Micheál Martin, and other FFers who have so much influence on our country today, 20 years later.

[Corey Rigley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will give you some details of how obsessed Fianna Fáil and Bertie Ahern were with holding onto power. During an unprecedented opportunity for Ireland to use its economic boom for the betterment of its people, its infrastructure and its future, instead we got tax cuts, wasteful spending, a property bubble, corruption and eventual bankruptcy due to the bank bailouts. We are still paying back the debt due to the incompetence of these Fianna Fáil led governments.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

well. the story of a boy called Bertie. And what he done. And what he done next. And finally how he said 'you dont deserve me' and sidled off to a ghost like existence on de Nortside. I guess when I got my hands on this book I thought it'd be the entire history of FF in power. Which thankfully it wasn't. Anyway, given that I lived through the years in question, I did find it a good 'warts and all' account which seemed credible in it's dialogue (warning, lots of profanity). I cant say I couldn't put it down, but it did build up a head of steam and I guess I kinda knew how it ended. One unexpected angle was that Charlie McCreevy seemed to be the real power behind the throne when occupying the Finance Minister's chair. And things started to unravel when he was 'shifted to Europe'. So being as apolitical as I can be, it's a good read in it's own right... Enjoyable and engrossing.

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Altogether too forgiving of its subject(s) throughout, perhaps too enamoured of the thrill of the tale to fully reckon with the legacies it left. Leahy's ability to gain access and insight makes him a source that can't be ignored in studying this period of Irish politics, but his own politics show often in framing these governments' questionable policy choices. That proves deeply frustrating in a book that presents itself an honest, objective historical account.

[Frances]

Anyone wanting to understand Fianna Fail in the modern era must read this page-turner.