The Times We Lived In: Enda Kenny, back in his prime

We like to feature pictures of baby animals in this column. We also, sometimes, feature baby politicians.

Like most babies they tend to be joyful creatures, smiling and gurgling and unaware of the horrors in store for them in the later stages of a political career – when they’ll end up kissing babies, and much worse besides, in their efforts to negotiate the complex ecosystems and potentially lethal habitats of Leinster House and beyond.

As baby politicians go, this is a fine example of the species. It is of course the new Fine Gael deputy for Mayo West, Enda Kenny, being carried in triumph into the Dáil in the autumn of 1975.

“Judging by the turn-out of teenagers sporting Kenny badges in Castlebar,” our correspondent Michael Finlan had written on the day of the byelection, which was prompted by the death of Kenny’s father, Henry, “he should get the bigger share of the youth vote.”

As is often noted the Taoiseach, who will celebrate his 64th birthday this month, still looks pretty youthful (considering). In our photo, however, he is unbelievably fresh-faced. The hair; the guileless smile; the hands uplifted as if he’s about to declare a miracle, or conduct a choir.

If his supporters in 1975 were to have burst into song, what song might they sing? The charts of the day were full of suitably celebratory ditties.

How about David Essex's Gonna Make You a Star? Or Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man? Or Mud's Oh Boy? Or maybe, from the previous year, the Jackson Browne classic Before the Deluge.

Any of which, actually, Kenny might rather listen to – even now – than the song he has been hearing from the general populace of late. Which isn’t so much the howl of the apex predator, as the screech of a baby which has chucked its toys out of the pram.

These and other Irish Times images can be purchased from: irishtimes.com/photosales