Book description
In March 2008, Bertie Ahern announced his resignation as Taoiseach,
prompted by ongoing evidence in a planning inquiry that uncovered he had
received large sums of money when minister for finance. Yet, even in
defeat, he remained the most popular politician of his generation, one
for whom the defining 'Teflon Taoiseach' tag had not entirely slid away.
However, what made Bertie Ahern unique was not his enormous popularity
or the revelations about his personal finances, but his dependence on a
power base largely separate to Fianna Fail: 'the Drumcondra Mafia', a
largely unknown, fiercely loyal, close-knit group of friends. When Ahern
was Taoiseach the centre of power was arguably as much in St Luke's, the
legendary constituency office bought by the Drumcondra Mafia, as in
Government Buildings. Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia takes the
reader inside the organisation and examines how they not only
established the most efficient electoral machine in the country but put
'their man' in the most senior political office in the state. It also
details how, in his rise to power, Ahern acquired substantial sums of
money while propagating the image of a man with no interest in money.
Finally, it tracks his descent with the investigation into his finances,
a descent punctuated by one final victory, in the 2007 general election.
This is the story not just of Bertie Ahern but of the men and women who
travelled with him on his extraordinary journey. Michael Clifford is a
reporter and columnist with the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Times. He
regularly contributes to a variety of programmes on Irish radio and
television. He is author of Love You to Death: Ireland's Wife Killers
Revealed and co-author of Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia and
Scandal Nation. Shane Coleman is the Political Editor of Newstalk and is
a regular analyst of Irish politics on television. He was previously
Political Editor of The Sunday Tribune. He is the bestselling author of
Foot in Mouth: Famous Irish Political Gaffes, Up the Poll: Great Irish
Election Stories and co-author of Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia.
