JIM GAVIN’S EARS might have pricked up in mid-February to some flattery, however genuine it was.
At that precise time, the National Football League was three rounds in, and Gaelic football looked a very different sport than the one from 12 months previously.
The introduction of a whole suite of rule changes had left the 2025 version feeling spicy and funky, like a Mexican meal followed by a Bootsy Collins concert.
Some preferred the thin gruel of previous seasons but, by and large, the positivity was flowing downhill in torrents towards the Football Review Committee and its cerebral leader Gavin.
“I think I definitely hit the jackpot with the man that I got to chair the review committee,” GAA President Jarlath Burns said at the launch of the All-Ireland U20 championship.
“Jim Gavin is an incredible guy. I speak to him maybe three or four times a week. He’s very methodical, very meticulous.”
Jim Gavin with Jarlath Burns, with FRC member Éamonn Fitzmaurice looking on. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
We are talking about the only manager to have won a five-in-a-row of Sam Maguires here. But at that time, jazzing up the growingly stodgy sport of Gaelic football felt like a crowning achievement for Gavin.
Before the year was out, he was left publicly humiliated after he stood as the Fianna Fáil candidate to be President of Ireland.
The germ of the idea came from a conversation between Keith Barr, Gavin’s old Dublin teammate, and Jack Chambers, Minister for Public Expenditure.
It became an original sin within the party, immediately creating a chasm between those that felt their arm squeezed to support party leader Micheál Martin’s preferred choice over other candidates that had their time served and knew all the best baby cheeks to kiss, wakes to attend, and bon mots while performatively pint-supping.
It ended with Gavin derided for the non-repayment of overpaid rent to a former tenant, Niall Donald, of over €3,000 dating back 16 years. Donald is also the deputy editor of the Sunday World newspaper.
And what happened then?
As one Fianna Fáil insider told us, “The leadership and the lads just pulled up the ladder and pissed off.”
***
The paradox in all of this was the timing.
On 4 October, Jim Gavin made a discreet entrance into the GAA Special Congress in Croke Park as the last of his Football Review Committee proposals – 62 in all – were being voted through.
Gavin’s head had to be swimming nonetheless. That morning, The Irish Independent devoted all of page 8 to Fionnán Sheehan’s story of how Gavin had failed to pay Donald back his overpaid rent.
While it was 16 years previous, it is difficult to see how it might have slipped Gavin’s mind. Donald had, after all, reached out to him on several occasions.
Getting nowhere with his enquiries, he visited Gavin’s parents, prompting a phone call from Gavin that was, according to Donald, heated in parts until they reached a resolution and Gavin promised he would pay back the funds.
Donald never received anything.
When the story was bubbling under, according to Fianna Fáil’s internal review of the Presidential bid, Gavin had been asked repeatedly about it, and claimed he was not aware of the situation.
***
Within the Football Review Committee, Gavin’s abilities were recognised and admired by those assisting him.
One was Colm Nally, the experienced coach who has had stints with Kildare, Meath, Louth among others.
As it happens, he knew Gavin well. The two had been on the Dublin minor team of 1989 and subsequently with the county U21s. As coach with Meath, he came up against Gavin when he was managing Dublin in two Leinster finals.
“I can only speak so highly of him because he was so committed to this and made everybody feel part of it,” says Nally.
“The way he chaired the meetings and all the correspondence with it was just top class. He would stress that he was only a part of the committee and sometimes he would go to lengths to show people it wasn’t his opinion. It was a general consensus that we always settled on.
“He was very organised, very committed, driven. Open to ideas and suggestions. Sometimes things got through and sometimes they wouldn’t. But it was never ruled out by him.
“From that point of view, I used to be in awe of how he got the time to do all this sort of thing.”
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Colm Nally with Jim Gavin at an FRC 'Sandbox' trial game. Dan Clohessy / INPHO
Dan Clohessy / INPHO / INPHO
Once they commenced their work, they would meet every second Friday in Mullingar, with an online meeting on Mondays.
When the 2025 National League started, they met every second Monday to review games and teased out how things were rolling out, suggesting nips and tucks. Some rules were altered during the league. Criticism followed. The committee pinned their ears back.
There were constant emails and a WhatsApp group that hummed along with input practically every day.
“You were constantly thinking. We all had notebooks with us the whole time and constantly writing down ideas. You never got away from it. It was always to the fore of your thinking,” says Nally.
Naturally, there is significant curiosity around how Gavin went about his business.
This was a man who delivered the only five-in-a-row in Gaelic football, and six Sam Maguire titles in seven years. He managed the greatest team of all time.
And yet, it isn’t a stretch to say that while Dublin were admired, they weren’t loved. Blessed with supreme, gifted footballers, they played to a method that limited but did not eliminate the occasions where they could display that quality.
Some of this could be attributed to the image of their figurehead.
Gavin’s demeanour on the sideline was devoid of emotion to an extent not seen before in the GAA.
His preferred method was to sit in the stand, coolly observing, only occasionally making his way to the sideline. When the camera would pan to Gavin in big moments, they would capture a man with precise mannerisms. Sipping water seemed to be lifted from a military instructional manual.
When it came to media dealings, he made the calculation that being a clubbable sort wouldn’t block down one shot or put the ball over the bar. By accident or design, he came across as wilfully pompous.
He didn’t run the FRC the same way, Nally insists.
“I would put him down as being great fun. When we had our meetings, especially our in-person meetings, it would be like you were at a coaching course,” says Nally.
“You would have an ice-breaker and a bit of fun. What I liked about him, and would say this was how he ran the Dublin team, if the meeting was finished at nine o’clock, it was finished at nine o’clock.
“That allowed you to relax, knowing that you were not going to be sitting there all night.
“In terms of structure, you know where you stood, but the meetings were fun and you could see his personality. OK, he will do the work, but he likes to have a bit of craic as well.”
He didn’t put the arm over the homework, either. With ex-players and managers, he would share anecdotes of his time in charge of Dublin.
Celebrating victory with Brian Fenton. Oisin Keniry / INPHO
Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO
Five days after the All-Ireland final and bathed in the warm praise of GAA President Burns for having saved Gaelic football, Jim Gavin confirmed to Seán Dorgan, general secretary of Fianna Fáil, that following exploratory meetings, he would like his name to go forward to become the President of Ireland.
Within the FRC, there was some surprise. In Croke Park one day, Nally asked him, “Were you ever sent off as a player?’
Gavin said he didn’t know. Nally joked back, “Well, they will find that out.”
***
“To be fair, Jim Gavin ticked a lot of boxes on paper,” says a Fianna Fáil source. “I can see the appeal. Unfortunately for Jim Gavin, it was the way it was done that didn’t help him. It was felt as something by us that it was something foisted upon us by the leadership
“Obviously, he still won the convention, so the leader (Micheál Martin) got his way. But the way it has gone since has caused trouble for him and caused a lot of damage.
“Many people met him (Gavin) on the campaign trail. The people that met him said, one to one, they felt he was quite personable. My vague recollection is the day he came into the room on 9 September when he made his pitch to the party, he read from a script.
“Now, he did a reasonable job that day to be fair to him, whereas Billy (Kelleher, MEP and the challenger for the party nomination) was seasoned and he did it ad-lib. The difference was there for all to see.
“But the contest was already over before he entered the room because the phone calls were made, the pressure was on, and the arms were squeezed.
It was quite clear from the first day that people were saying, ‘Fuck it, is he up to this?’”
After being confirmed as the party choice, winning the vote 41-29, Gavin duly went out to face the media.
And he replied, “It’s unconscionable that the bombing is still taking place when I believe that the military objectives have probably been reached for that military campaign.”
Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin spoke for many when he wrote on social media, ‘This is a disgraceful way to talk about the brutal slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children! The forced starvation of an entire population! The destruction of Gaza! It’s a genocide, Jim. Shameful comments that should be withdrawn immediately.’
Within the party, the collective hearts sank.
“Ah sure look, you do cringe,” says the Fianna Fáil insider.
“Politics, there is an art to it after a while. You have to be clear in your words, you think about things and think about your messaging.
“This guy, he was a successful guy in his own right, but politics is different and a few of the older heads in the party, even after he won the convention, were concerned about how he might go in the media.
“It was quite obvious that it was going to be difficult.”
If he needed ‘a win’ fast, he wasn’t helped by those around him. A clip of him down on the farm led to much hilarity about the wearing of white trousers and not closing a farm gate.
However, Presidential candidates have survived worse than an ill-judged remark that couldn’t be clarified, or a bit of scoffing over the townie in the farmyard.
In the background, never quite going away, was the dispute with Donald and the overpaid rent.
When asked, Gavin denied all knowledge.
***
Until 4 October.
It should have been his crowning achievement. The man who had ‘completed it, mate’ with Gaelic football, who had shaken up the sport, was in Croke Park to see his changes voted in.
The day before, he was asked about the rent situation in two calls. Fianna Fáil and Gavin put together a statement that had the line, ‘He does not have any recollection or records of any such dispute’.
But that Saturday, Donald called a Fianna Fáil press secretary who was in the presence of Gavin, who must have gulped when he realised the jig was up.
The following day on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, he was grilled on the issue.
Afterwards he had a meeting with Martin and Chambers. With the help of the party at their headquarters, he drafted a statement and withdrew.
Gavin fields reporter's questions with Micheál Martin close by. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The aftermath was messy. A parliamentary meeting was called and went on for five-and-a-half hours.
During the course of this, the question was asked if anyone had contacted Gavin, to see how he was coping.
“Nobody from the seniority had checked in,” says the Fianna Fáil insider.
“He was pulverised in the media for a few days and nobody had checked in with him, touched base with him and asked how he was getting on. There was no approach made, which I thought was appalling.
“If you look at Micheál Martin’s social media feed, that week leading into that eventual withdrawal, there was four or five days of absolutely no posting in terms of encouragement for Jim Gavin. I think they knew this was going south when people were actively campaigning around the country and the leadership had already abandoned him.”
And still the farce had to be played out. It was too late to remove Gavin’s name from the ballot, which led to Martin endorsing the candidature of Fine Gael’s Heather Humphries. Many were not prepared to hold their nose.
“The divide in FF was generally along the old-school republican Fianna Fáilers, versus the more pragmatic, conciliatory, reflective of the modern era,” says the insider.
“The perverse thing is, it was the old-school republican, more loyal voters, who went out and voted for Jim Gavin in the end because they couldn’t vote for anybody else.
All the guys who did the early running for him, literally abandoned him. I think that’s bad form on a human level.
“It was just weird from start to finish. He got no loyalty. At the first hint that it might backfire, they literally scattered and that was unfortunate for him and bad form.”
Even allowing for the bloodsport that is Irish Presidential elections, this was a savaging that will echo for generations.
At this remove, the key players in Martin and Chambers appear to have survived. Martin is also helpfully telling us all to ‘move on.’
But their credibility has taken a hit, from which it may be difficult to recover.
Gavin turned down the opportunity to take part in the review of the process.
He will be remembered in GAA circles as among the greatest-ever managers, but holding out on a debt is a stubborn stain.
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Inside Jim Gavin's 2025: From Football Review Committee success to Presidential disaster
JIM GAVIN’S EARS might have pricked up in mid-February to some flattery, however genuine it was.
At that precise time, the National Football League was three rounds in, and Gaelic football looked a very different sport than the one from 12 months previously.
The introduction of a whole suite of rule changes had left the 2025 version feeling spicy and funky, like a Mexican meal followed by a Bootsy Collins concert.
Some preferred the thin gruel of previous seasons but, by and large, the positivity was flowing downhill in torrents towards the Football Review Committee and its cerebral leader Gavin.
“I think I definitely hit the jackpot with the man that I got to chair the review committee,” GAA President Jarlath Burns said at the launch of the All-Ireland U20 championship.
“Jim Gavin is an incredible guy. I speak to him maybe three or four times a week. He’s very methodical, very meticulous.”
We are talking about the only manager to have won a five-in-a-row of Sam Maguires here. But at that time, jazzing up the growingly stodgy sport of Gaelic football felt like a crowning achievement for Gavin.
Before the year was out, he was left publicly humiliated after he stood as the Fianna Fáil candidate to be President of Ireland.
The germ of the idea came from a conversation between Keith Barr, Gavin’s old Dublin teammate, and Jack Chambers, Minister for Public Expenditure.
It became an original sin within the party, immediately creating a chasm between those that felt their arm squeezed to support party leader Micheál Martin’s preferred choice over other candidates that had their time served and knew all the best baby cheeks to kiss, wakes to attend, and bon mots while performatively pint-supping.
It ended with Gavin derided for the non-repayment of overpaid rent to a former tenant, Niall Donald, of over €3,000 dating back 16 years. Donald is also the deputy editor of the Sunday World newspaper.
And what happened then?
As one Fianna Fáil insider told us, “The leadership and the lads just pulled up the ladder and pissed off.”
***
The paradox in all of this was the timing.
On 4 October, Jim Gavin made a discreet entrance into the GAA Special Congress in Croke Park as the last of his Football Review Committee proposals – 62 in all – were being voted through.
Gavin’s head had to be swimming nonetheless. That morning, The Irish Independent devoted all of page 8 to Fionnán Sheehan’s story of how Gavin had failed to pay Donald back his overpaid rent.
While it was 16 years previous, it is difficult to see how it might have slipped Gavin’s mind. Donald had, after all, reached out to him on several occasions.
Getting nowhere with his enquiries, he visited Gavin’s parents, prompting a phone call from Gavin that was, according to Donald, heated in parts until they reached a resolution and Gavin promised he would pay back the funds.
Donald never received anything.
When the story was bubbling under, according to Fianna Fáil’s internal review of the Presidential bid, Gavin had been asked repeatedly about it, and claimed he was not aware of the situation.
***
Within the Football Review Committee, Gavin’s abilities were recognised and admired by those assisting him.
One was Colm Nally, the experienced coach who has had stints with Kildare, Meath, Louth among others.
As it happens, he knew Gavin well. The two had been on the Dublin minor team of 1989 and subsequently with the county U21s. As coach with Meath, he came up against Gavin when he was managing Dublin in two Leinster finals.
“I can only speak so highly of him because he was so committed to this and made everybody feel part of it,” says Nally.
“The way he chaired the meetings and all the correspondence with it was just top class. He would stress that he was only a part of the committee and sometimes he would go to lengths to show people it wasn’t his opinion. It was a general consensus that we always settled on.
“He was very organised, very committed, driven. Open to ideas and suggestions. Sometimes things got through and sometimes they wouldn’t. But it was never ruled out by him.
“From that point of view, I used to be in awe of how he got the time to do all this sort of thing.”
Once they commenced their work, they would meet every second Friday in Mullingar, with an online meeting on Mondays.
When the 2025 National League started, they met every second Monday to review games and teased out how things were rolling out, suggesting nips and tucks. Some rules were altered during the league. Criticism followed. The committee pinned their ears back.
There were constant emails and a WhatsApp group that hummed along with input practically every day.
“You were constantly thinking. We all had notebooks with us the whole time and constantly writing down ideas. You never got away from it. It was always to the fore of your thinking,” says Nally.
Naturally, there is significant curiosity around how Gavin went about his business.
This was a man who delivered the only five-in-a-row in Gaelic football, and six Sam Maguire titles in seven years. He managed the greatest team of all time.
And yet, it isn’t a stretch to say that while Dublin were admired, they weren’t loved. Blessed with supreme, gifted footballers, they played to a method that limited but did not eliminate the occasions where they could display that quality.
Some of this could be attributed to the image of their figurehead.
Gavin’s demeanour on the sideline was devoid of emotion to an extent not seen before in the GAA.
His preferred method was to sit in the stand, coolly observing, only occasionally making his way to the sideline. When the camera would pan to Gavin in big moments, they would capture a man with precise mannerisms. Sipping water seemed to be lifted from a military instructional manual.
When it came to media dealings, he made the calculation that being a clubbable sort wouldn’t block down one shot or put the ball over the bar. By accident or design, he came across as wilfully pompous.
He didn’t run the FRC the same way, Nally insists.
“I would put him down as being great fun. When we had our meetings, especially our in-person meetings, it would be like you were at a coaching course,” says Nally.
“You would have an ice-breaker and a bit of fun. What I liked about him, and would say this was how he ran the Dublin team, if the meeting was finished at nine o’clock, it was finished at nine o’clock.
“That allowed you to relax, knowing that you were not going to be sitting there all night.
“In terms of structure, you know where you stood, but the meetings were fun and you could see his personality. OK, he will do the work, but he likes to have a bit of craic as well.”
He didn’t put the arm over the homework, either. With ex-players and managers, he would share anecdotes of his time in charge of Dublin.
Five days after the All-Ireland final and bathed in the warm praise of GAA President Burns for having saved Gaelic football, Jim Gavin confirmed to Seán Dorgan, general secretary of Fianna Fáil, that following exploratory meetings, he would like his name to go forward to become the President of Ireland.
Within the FRC, there was some surprise. In Croke Park one day, Nally asked him, “Were you ever sent off as a player?’
Gavin said he didn’t know. Nally joked back, “Well, they will find that out.”
***
“To be fair, Jim Gavin ticked a lot of boxes on paper,” says a Fianna Fáil source. “I can see the appeal. Unfortunately for Jim Gavin, it was the way it was done that didn’t help him. It was felt as something by us that it was something foisted upon us by the leadership
“Obviously, he still won the convention, so the leader (Micheál Martin) got his way. But the way it has gone since has caused trouble for him and caused a lot of damage.
“Many people met him (Gavin) on the campaign trail. The people that met him said, one to one, they felt he was quite personable. My vague recollection is the day he came into the room on 9 September when he made his pitch to the party, he read from a script.
“Now, he did a reasonable job that day to be fair to him, whereas Billy (Kelleher, MEP and the challenger for the party nomination) was seasoned and he did it ad-lib. The difference was there for all to see.
“But the contest was already over before he entered the room because the phone calls were made, the pressure was on, and the arms were squeezed.
After being confirmed as the party choice, winning the vote 41-29, Gavin duly went out to face the media.
As we had predicted beforehand, he would be asked about the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
And he replied, “It’s unconscionable that the bombing is still taking place when I believe that the military objectives have probably been reached for that military campaign.”
Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin spoke for many when he wrote on social media, ‘This is a disgraceful way to talk about the brutal slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children! The forced starvation of an entire population! The destruction of Gaza! It’s a genocide, Jim. Shameful comments that should be withdrawn immediately.’
Within the party, the collective hearts sank.
“Ah sure look, you do cringe,” says the Fianna Fáil insider.
“Politics, there is an art to it after a while. You have to be clear in your words, you think about things and think about your messaging.
“This guy, he was a successful guy in his own right, but politics is different and a few of the older heads in the party, even after he won the convention, were concerned about how he might go in the media.
“It was quite obvious that it was going to be difficult.”
If he needed ‘a win’ fast, he wasn’t helped by those around him. A clip of him down on the farm led to much hilarity about the wearing of white trousers and not closing a farm gate.
However, Presidential candidates have survived worse than an ill-judged remark that couldn’t be clarified, or a bit of scoffing over the townie in the farmyard.
In the background, never quite going away, was the dispute with Donald and the overpaid rent.
When asked, Gavin denied all knowledge.
***
Until 4 October.
It should have been his crowning achievement. The man who had ‘completed it, mate’ with Gaelic football, who had shaken up the sport, was in Croke Park to see his changes voted in.
The day before, he was asked about the rent situation in two calls. Fianna Fáil and Gavin put together a statement that had the line, ‘He does not have any recollection or records of any such dispute’.
But that Saturday, Donald called a Fianna Fáil press secretary who was in the presence of Gavin, who must have gulped when he realised the jig was up.
The following day on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, he was grilled on the issue.
Afterwards he had a meeting with Martin and Chambers. With the help of the party at their headquarters, he drafted a statement and withdrew.
The aftermath was messy. A parliamentary meeting was called and went on for five-and-a-half hours.
During the course of this, the question was asked if anyone had contacted Gavin, to see how he was coping.
“Nobody from the seniority had checked in,” says the Fianna Fáil insider.
“He was pulverised in the media for a few days and nobody had checked in with him, touched base with him and asked how he was getting on. There was no approach made, which I thought was appalling.
“If you look at Micheál Martin’s social media feed, that week leading into that eventual withdrawal, there was four or five days of absolutely no posting in terms of encouragement for Jim Gavin. I think they knew this was going south when people were actively campaigning around the country and the leadership had already abandoned him.”
And still the farce had to be played out. It was too late to remove Gavin’s name from the ballot, which led to Martin endorsing the candidature of Fine Gael’s Heather Humphries. Many were not prepared to hold their nose.
“The divide in FF was generally along the old-school republican Fianna Fáilers, versus the more pragmatic, conciliatory, reflective of the modern era,” says the insider.
“The perverse thing is, it was the old-school republican, more loyal voters, who went out and voted for Jim Gavin in the end because they couldn’t vote for anybody else.
“It was just weird from start to finish. He got no loyalty. At the first hint that it might backfire, they literally scattered and that was unfortunate for him and bad form.”
Even allowing for the bloodsport that is Irish Presidential elections, this was a savaging that will echo for generations.
At this remove, the key players in Martin and Chambers appear to have survived. Martin is also helpfully telling us all to ‘move on.’
But their credibility has taken a hit, from which it may be difficult to recover.
Gavin turned down the opportunity to take part in the review of the process.
He will be remembered in GAA circles as among the greatest-ever managers, but holding out on a debt is a stubborn stain.
Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
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Cardinal Rules Dublin GAA election issues Football Review Committee Jim Gavin presidential