The leadership deal: An attack on McDowell's opponents on RTÉ brought bitter divisions into the open and resulted in a quick deal, write Mark Brennock and Mark Hennessy.
Progressive Democrats party trustee and founder member Paul MacKay took time out from the Dublin diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes yesterday afternoon to speak by phone to RTÉ's This Week programme. He came on the line at a tense time, just under 24 hours to the close of nominations for the party leadership.
Opponents of Michael McDowell were feeling particularly uncomfortable. Tom Parlon had left a meeting with McDowell at Leopardstown Races the previous day without the offer of the party presidency he had hoped for.
Liz O'Donnell must have wondered what political future she would have working under a man with whom she had poor personal and political relations.
But it was clear that McDowell was a shoo-in, and those who were out of favour with him wondered would he adopt an inclusive unifying style of leadership, or would he marginalise his opponents.
MacKay, a McDowell fan, expressed his delight at Mary Harney's resignation, saying the party had been "drifting" for some time.
He laid out the McDowell camp's version of Mary Harney's reported promises to quit the leadership before.
She had indeed promised to go before, he said, but occasion after occasion had passed and she had not done so, causing "frustration within the hierarchy of the party".
Now the party needed a change, "somebody with a bit of hunger, a bit of ability and energy" and Michael McDowell was the man for this.
Having implied therefore that Mary Harney did not have hunger, ability and energy, that she was responsible for "drift" within the PDs and had repeatedly gone back on her word, he turned to McDowell's opponents within the parliamentary party.
"Michael McDowell was blackguarded by a small number of people within the parliamentary party," he said.
"Blackguarded," he repeated for emphasis, "and in fairness to him he kept silent. Others went out to damage him and did damage him." But now he was "vindicated".
The "small number of people within the parliamentary party" who had backed Mary Harney against the attempt to force her out in June were apoplectic. Some of McDowell's supporters also saw the interview as deeply unhelpful.
Behind the scenes over the previous 48 hours, McDowell had worked hard to open communications with those who were unhappy with the prospect of his becoming leader.
Now a McDowell loyalist was going public to attack them, to crow over Harney's departure and to say that McDowell was right about everything all along.
Before This Week, nobody expected any announcement yesterday afternoon. Parlon was due to talk to McDowell again, having left empty-handed from the hastily arranged meeting with McDowell in the bizarre surroundings of Leopardstown Racecourse the previous afternoon. But MacKay's interview provoked fury among McDowell's opponents and deep anxiety among some of his supporters.
Several senior figures he spoke to made the same point - his leadership would be launched in an atmosphere of acrimony and division unless something was done quickly.
McDowell rang Parlon immediately and offered him the party presidency. He rang O'Donnell too to agree the deal.
Just 90 minutes after This Week, McDowell issued a statement announcing the best deal that any PD hoping for party unity could have hoped for. Parlon would nominate him as leader, O'Donnell would second him. Parlon would become party president, O'Donnell deputy leader. Harney would stay as Minister for Health.
This may have been McDowell's plan all along, although several well-placed sources dispute this. MacKay's intervention may have led McDowell to do the deal - it certainly brought the announcement forward.
McDowell had stayed out of the public eye since Harney's resignation but behind the scenes he had been holding discussions and trying to open channels of communication with his most bitter enemies within the parliamentary party.
On Thursday night more than 30 PDs including McDowell, Parlon and O'Donnell attended a prolonged dinner in Dublin's Cooke's restaurant to mark Harney's departure.
The next morning McDowell was already setting up meetings with O'Donnell and Cork-based senator John Minihan, two of those seen as being among the "blackguarders" referred to by MacKay.
On Friday night O'Donnell and McDowell met in Dublin's St Stephen's Green Club.
It is not known what transpired at what one source described as "a good meeting" but McDowell is believed to have left confident that he would not face a challenge from the Dublin South deputy.
It is not clear whether O'Donnell left the meeting knowing she was to be made deputy leader.
The next morning, Saturday, McDowell travelled to Cashel, Co Tipperary, to meet Senator John Minihan, who travelled from Cork, in the Cashel Palace Hotel just off the town's main street.
The two men meeting halfway was not just geographically convenient but highly symbolic. They have had a very poor relationship at times in the past.
Minihan, an ex-Army officer, represented Harney in the early efforts to bring McDowell back into the party after he left in 1997, and was subject to some bitter McDowell tirades for his troubles during that process. Minihan is O'Donnell's biggest supporter in the parliamentary party. Having met the two parliamentary party members who most distrust him and fear the effect of his leadership (on themselves as well as the party), McDowell travelled back to Dublin to meet Tom Parlon at Leopardstown races.
Parlon had made himself available to the media on Friday afternoon, suggesting he might well run for the leadership but he was doing a lot of reflecting before deciding.
Parlon's behaviour over the previous 24 hours had left open the possibility that he might challenge McDowell. It also suggested Parlon could be in the role of kingmaker, with a declaration of support for McDowell effectively ending any possibility of a contest.
Arriving at Leopardstown, Parlon had reason to hope that a reward could be offered for his support.
Parlon's hopes of the presidency - a job that is entirely in the gift of the leader - were raised after Senator Tom Morrissey had suggested on RTÉ's Drivetime on Friday that the Laois/Offaly veteran of IFA leadership battles would be the perfect man for the job.
Morrissey, who categorically insists that he was acting on his own initiative and not on behalf of McDowell, had pre-recorded the interview so that he could fit in a round of golf at the Elm Green golf club in Castleknock, though he told both men about what he had said before it was broadcast.
But the fact that Fiona O'Malley went on television and suggested the same thing added to the belief that this was a deal that was being cooked up in the McDowell camp.
Parlon may well have seriously considered running. But he may have been jockeying for position too, because the person who comes second in a leadership contest is often given a key post by the victor as a gesture of unity.
On Thursday evening Liz O'Donnell was seen as the likely leading challenger, were one to emerge. Tom Parlon's talk through Friday of how he was "reflecting" and talking to his supporters, who were keen for him to run, ensured that 24 hours after Harney's resignation, it was Parlon and not O'Donnell who was emerging in media speculation as the only possible challenger.
The post of party president could have copperfastened the suggestion that Parlon was now effectively number three in the party's pecking order ahead of O'Donnell, and in line for a Cabinet post should the PDs be back in Government with two ministerial posts, and should Harney decide to give up senior Cabinet status at the next election.
But Parlon left Leopardstown on Saturday without any commitment to his becoming party president. Then yesterday afternoon, shortly after RTÉ's This Week came the phone call from McDowell with the offer of the job.
The decision to make O'Donnell deputy leader at the same time ensures that neither can be seen to have a clear advantage in the pecking order, although the president's job is a busy and hands-on one while that of deputy leader is largely symbolic, denoting status.
McDowell moved extraordinarily quickly and decisively to kill off any prospect of the old wounds being reopened. Politically, it seems an astute move and its speed yesterday gave it great dramatic effect.
Yesterday's decisiveness suggests that Paul MacKay may be right about at least one thing: That the new leader does indeed have "ability and energy".