POLITICS is a cruel trade. You give it the months and years of your life; you serve it your waking and dreaming days; you feed it blood and ambition and then the electorate - or some old enemy - strikes you down.
Ma ire Geoghegan Quinn caused a sensation by announcing by fax her decision to retire from politics on RTE's Morning Ireland programme. She got a free run. Right through the day, her name was on people's lips as politicians, journalists and the electorate tried to divine the causes for this development.
Her own statement set out the position in trenchant terms: "When politics demands - and wrongly demands - that a TD's family members serve as expendable extensions of the elected member, I will not serve."
The obvious reference was to publicity surrounding a recent school fracas involving her 17 year old son and to his expulsion as a boarder. Supporters and detractors within Fianna Fail, however, believed the underlying motivations were far more complex and deep seated than that.
They had detected a loss of motivation and political appetite since the traumatic days of 1994 when the Fianna Fail Labour Party government fell in ruins and Bertie Ahern emerged as the new party leader. She had always insisted she would not grow old in politics and, with the leadership sealed off for the immediate future Mrs Geoghegan Quinn was casting around for new outlets for her undoubted talents and ability.
When news broke of her impending resignation, everybody tiptoed around the issue. Frank Fahey of Fianna Fail and Bobby Molloy of the Progressive Democrats could scarcely conceal their relief that they would not have to contest a general election against her. They paid public tribute to her ability and to her record in government.
However, there was an uncertainty there, an unspoken question of whether a "stroke" was being pulled. Was the decision reversible? Mr Fahey worried that Mrs Geoghegan Quinn might be turned around by public opinion. Bertie Ahern, though, was in no doubt. She was going to leave politics. They had discussed the matter at length last Sunday. That was why the word "irrevocable" had been used in her statement, he explained.
Then, in an extraordinary political outburst, Charlie Haughey described political reality as he saw it. A fear of losing her seat had led her to retire, he suggested, and not a commitment to privacy for politicians or to family values. If she was so committed to family values, he told the Evening Herald, she would have retired years ago.
The former leader of Fianna Fail may have been repaying an old score. He believed the dagger that ended his political career was honed and fashioned by Albert Reynolds, with the support of Padraig Flynn and Mrs Geoghegan Quinn. Watching the former justice minister retiring on a wave of public sympathy based on family values, was probably too much for Kinsealy flesh and blood, especially as there was an outside chance that public outpourings of regret might generate a presidential election platform. The barb went in. Political blood flowed.
Politicians of all parties were unwilling to accept Mrs Geoghegan Quinn's statement at face value. They accepted that concern for her family may have been the clinching element in making up her mind to leave politics, but they believed it wasn't a simple question of family privacy.
Ma ire Geoghegan Quinn lost her way in 1994. Friends and detractors say events leading to the collapse of the Fianna Fail Labour Party government, and subsequent developments, changed her. The fire did not go out, but it burned low.
Loss of office and a rout in the subsequent leadership race had a devastating effect. Albert Reynolds agreed she was "very disturbed by events". Although reappointed to the Fianna Fail front bench by Mr Ahern, her early contributions were few and lacked sparkle. When she broke her leg in an accident, she took 15 months out to write a novel, The Green Diamond.
A character in that book states:
"Within the party they will be proud of her and each one of the men will fancy he has a special relationship with her that could be brought to a warm and reckless bedding, but when it comes to electing a leader, their practical self interest will push them towards someone safer, less volatile, more diplomatic, more practical."
Recognition that party leadership was beyond her grasp may have encouraged her to review her future in the light of her family needs, especially as she was in danger of losing her Dail seat to young Mr Fahey. After 22 years in politics, it was a case of "been there, done that" and, at 46 years of age, it was still possible - with her intelligence, ability and drive - to fashion a new and exciting career, closer to her family.
She appears to have been deeply upset by her son's expulsion from boarding school. That fact, more than the subsequent publicity, and the need to cater for her son at home as a day pupil, may have influenced her decision. Blaming an intrusive and uncaring press for all her woes was a useful diversionary tactic.
It was also a popular one at Leinster House in the aftermath of the Lowry affair and questions about the tax affairs of TDs and their families. Bobby Molloy expressed his sympathy and declared: "As a parent, I fully sympathise with her about the insensitive media invasions into her family life in recent weeks."
Fine Gael Minister of State Gay Mitchell went further. He suggested giving the Ceann Comhairle powers "to promote the cause of elected public officeholders and to help protect elected public servants from unjust intrusion and attack".
He suggested the Ceann Comhairle might join with newspaper publishers and the National Union of Journalists to establish guidelines about "what is reasonable to report concerning the families and private lives of public representatives". A reasonable balance should be struck "if we do not want politics to be abandoned to the sourest and most destructive street agitators", Mr Mitchell said.
It was fairly typical over the top stuff for the junior Mr Mitchell. A Government spokesman later admitted: "The level of intrusion into the private lives of politicians in this country isn't great."
Keeping it like that will be the problem.