Prof Ken Carty (UBC)

It is hard to click into an Irish politics podcast these days without hearing some reference to a coming leadership contest in Fianna Fáil. Perhaps that is not so surprising. The current occupant of the office has held it longer than any of his predecessors, with the obvious exception of the party’s founder. Those waiting in the wings must be thinking it is their turn. After all, the leadership of Fianna Fáil is surely the greatest prize in Irish politics. For a century now, everyone who has managed to grasp the office has served as Taoiseach.

Such a prize ought to be worth fighting for. So why are we told, by the Irish Times’ pundits, that there are really only three plausible candidates – all of them soldiers in the current regime.  Each has been a part of defining what the party has become in recent years, each would appear to offer it little new or different that might restore some of its former dominant status. One might think that the country’s largest party, which likes to think of itself as the country’s natural government, ought to be interested in attracting a broader and more diverse set of candidates. One might think that the country has other gifted individuals who could be attracted to throwing their hat in the ring. But as things stand, that doesn’t appear likely to happen.

Irish parties have long accepted the practice, presumably inherited from Britain, of choosing a leader from among their existing parliamentary caucus. Their difficulty with this is that they typically have a comparatively small, and often modestly talented caucus. That leaves them with a rather limited choice when seeking a new national leader. While TDs might be expected to want to keep the top prize to themselves, they may also believe that only they really understand the subtleties of party management, electioneering, parliamentary maneuvering and cabinet governing required of the leader.

The temptation to tightly control their leadership transitions is considerable in governing parties, like Fianna Fáil, which are often in office at moments of change. Sometimes it has worked out, and new leaders like Jack Lynch and Bertie Ahern have gone on to take the party to continuing electoral and governmental success. But on other occasions it has gone badly, leaving the party with leaders like Albert Reynolds and Brian Cowan who presided over a vote decline and election loss in subsequent elections.  

Opposition parties, accepting the same caucus constraints, haven’t done much better. Fine Gael’s last two changes have left it with leaders who each saw the party’s vote share slide in the subsequent election.  For parties like Labour, which have comparatively tiny parliamentary memberships, the choice is so restricted as to realistically offer virtually none at all.

Does it have to be this way? The short answer is no. For over a century, Canada’s Liberal party has regularly used national conventions of varying kinds to recruited public and private sector outsiders into its leadership at moments when it recognized the political virtues of redefinition, renewal, and revitalization. The result has been to contribute to its extraordinary success as the most successful party in the parliamentary world, and cemented its position as the country’s natural governing party.

Not much more than a year ago the party and its government was in serious trouble. It’s leader, Justin Trudeau, was widely seen by the public as out of his depth, its support in the polls had plummeted, and Donald Trump had re-emerged with political and economic ambitions which threatened core elements of Canadian life. The Liberals knew they were in dire straits and facing an electoral disaster. Trudeau had to go and so was unceremoniously pushed out. But Liberals knew that none of the leading figures of his government and caucus could replace him; after all, they were seen as a part of the problem. Fixing their problem required starting with the top. And so, as they had several times before, the Liberals turned to look outside their ranks.

The party’s solution was to recruit Mark Carney, a well-known former central banker, into what quickly became a pro forma leadership selection contest. Carney had never before run for public office, and it wasn’t clear he had ever had a party membership, but he offered a new, confident and positive leadership. Within weeks he took office and quickly led the party to a great come from far-behind electoral victory. Within months he was reshaping Canada’s response to Trump’s challenges, his presence at Davos was establishing his place as an international leader, and his building of new alliances and international partnerships was demonstrating the country’s capacity to respond to the imperatives of a ruptured world order. None of that would have happened had the Liberals not had a practice of reaching outside for new leadership.

Does Fianna Fáil face its own uncertain electoral trials as it seeks to reassert its place as the country’s historic governing party? Do looming national policy questions, and the pressures of international transformation challenge the Irish state’s capacity and continuing status. Does Ireland have a Mark Carney waiting out in the wings? Those are questions for Fianna Fáil to answer. What a century of Canadian Liberal party experience suggests is that reaching out beyond the ‘usual suspects’ in a tired caucus can be a positive liberating experience. Martin’s long leadership restored Fianna Fáil’s ability to play a part in Irish public life at a moment when that was very much in question. Finding new ways to engage new leadership might be just the way to celebrate that contribution.

October 1, 2026

Ken Carty is Professor Emeritus at The University of British Columbia. He has been observing Irish electoral politics since the early 1970s.