POLITICS: 'The longest planned, the best prepared, but the most boring in living memory" is Geraldine Kennedy's verdict on the 2002 election campaign. John Bowman reviews The Irish Times Nealon's Guide to the 29th Dáil and Seanad by Geraldine Kennedy.
This is in stark contrast to the previous seven elections in which no outgoing government was returned, and which all had tight finishes. Perhaps we have been spoiled by a sequence of exciting electoral contests throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Many of these elections were followed by the publication of a number of political guides: Vincent Browne inaugurated the opinionated and innovative Magill guides in 1981; Sean Donnelly's guides in the 1990s offered ambitious psephological analysis; and, latterly, Noel Whelan's adventurous efforts, including the brave pre-election survey of what might happen last summer have added another dimension.
Each of these approaches has different strengths. But only Nealon's Guide has chronicled all elections since it was first published in 1973. Authoritative and reliable, it has offered expert articles and a range of statistics about the national and regional trends.
But the heart of any guide, of course, is the tabulation of the constituency results. In this regard, Nealon's Guide is traditional. The candidates are listed alphabetically as in the official returns. All other guides prefer to relist the candidates in order of their success, the candidate who wins the first seat heading the list and so on. Arguably, this is more user-friendly. But for the purist - who may be familiar with official returns over many decades - there is some merit in the alphabetical listing. And on this occasion Nealon's Guide highlights the successful candidates with a stripe of their party's colours making for a dramatic page layout.
As in the past, the guide adds statistical data on each constituency but avoids analytical commentary on why voters voted as they did at local level. Ted Nealon, himself a Fine Gael TD from 1981 to 1997, may have thought it would be invidious to attempt such explanations.
Of course, Irish constituencies are notoriously complicated. In some cases where the outcome was thought to be a foregone conclusion, a first count can present a puzzle as daunting as that of a Rubik's Cube. This is what makes our elections so unpredictable. So many factors can come into play in deciding the final seats that it is probably fair to suggest that Irish elections must be among the most exciting anywhere.
Although not a disinterested commentator, I reckon that the traditional manual count starting at 9 a.m. and continuing into the early hours of the following morning - with its attendant media coverage - has been responsible for enthusing generations of political activists in all parties. In an age when voter participation is declining, what will the impact of electronic counting be when the results can be churned out almost instantaneously?
Incidentally, one of the most telling photographs in this book is of Sean Ryan's chivalrous concern for Nora Owen after the shocking mismanagement of the announcement of her fate in Dublin North, the first TD to hear of a defeat through the wonders of the electronic count.
The profiles in the book are somewhat uneven: most read like self-assessment CVs. Michael Lowry's exit from cabinet and later from the Fine Gael party are cited simply as resignations without any explanation of the circumstances. But Beverly Cooper-Flynn's travails in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party are documented and explained. Reference books in other democracies attempt more detailed profiles of their parliamentarians; Andrew Roth's approach in the UK goes beyond the CV to an assessment of ambition, character, voting record and overall impact on politics.
His verdicts on two Northern Ireland Secretaries give some idea of his approach. Mo Mowlam knew that "she was not the pin-up of the chauvinist Unionist leaders" and was better "at cajoling people than in memorising the nitty-gritty of legal agreements". And of John Reid, Roth wrote that despite his smile on television, he was "a hard man with a past. A Glaswegian ex-communist trusted by Tony Blair to deliver the goods". Success might bring Reid "the highest offices in the land" - but should he fail, "expect this ambitious fixer to crawl from the wreckage nonetheless".
The Magill guide came closest to this tone in its initial 1981 edition. See the entry under Ray Burke, with its mention of land dealing in Dublin North and its prescient complaint concerning the propriety of public representatives "earning considerable fees from ventures whose profitability they are in a position to enhance through their activities as public representatives". In contrast, Ray Burke's entries in Nealon's Guides have merely listed his CV. A pity, especially since the 1977 edition was co-edited by Frank Dunlop.
All election guides bring something different to the table. Now that The Irish Times has taken over Nealon's Guide, it should in future editions exploit its exceptional editorial resources by deepening its coverage, offering full results of Seanad elections and by- elections and including the best campaign cartoons by one of the most perceptive commentators on Irish politics, Martyn Turner.
John Bowman has presented election results programmes on RTÉ since 1981. His latest book - with Eimer Philbin Bowman - Jonathan: memories, reflections, tributes was published earlier this year
John Bowman