also focused on two separate concepts – reorganisation and a sense of patience.

He said that Kenny needed to spend a year working on reviving the party’s organisation, including a one-member one-vote system. He also warned party members not to be impatient, that they had to give Kenny plenty of time to prove himself as leader. For over a year, until September 2003, Kenny criss-crossed the country, encouraging local branches to drive up membership. His national visibility (and recognition) was still close to zero but Fine Gael was prepared to weather that problem in pursuit of a medium-term gain. Retrospectively, it was sage advice.

Martin has embarked on a remarkably similar exercise. The address in Ragg was part of an exercise to address all 43 constituency organisations (he’s gone throughnoted the new applications: “There are a lot of people who still want Fianna Fáil to be a successful organisation and that’s prompted them to join,” is his explanation.

Ógra, Fianna Fáil’s youth wing, is the obvious vehicle for recruiting new members. The party is very active on college campuses but there are some constituencies where it has no presence. In Galway West, there is a very active ógra. With two major third-level colleges, there are hundreds of members and the constituency PRO Aoife Golden says they have run major fundraisers for Haiti and held public meetings on policy matters.

In recent years, young activists such as Eoin Coyne in Cork East and Mark Curley in Dublin West have helped set up ógra in their constituencies, with regular updates on