Colin Sheridan: Everyone gets a second chance in public life. Except here in Ireland
![Colin Sheridan: Everyone gets a second chance in public life. Except here in Ireland Colin Sheridan: Everyone gets a second chance in public life. Except here in Ireland](/cms_media/module_img/7725/3862885_6_articlesmall_37523_-1350372974.jpg)
Ben Dunne leaving Dublin Castle after giving evidence to the payment to politicians tribunal in 1997. The recently-deceased businessman is an exception to the rule that people in the public eye in Ireland don't generally get a second act. File picture: Billy Higgins/Irish Examiner Archive
F Scott Fitzgerald is a much-quoted man. There’s the quip about having a first-rate intelligence and a few lines here and there about the demon drink, and a couple of absolute zingers about watching your life — and your wife — fall apart.
![The famous line about second acts in F Scott Fitzgerald's essay 'My Lost City' itself returned for an encore, as he used it again in notes he made for 'The Last Tycoon'. The famous line about second acts in F Scott Fitzgerald's essay 'My Lost City' itself returned for an encore, as he used it again in notes he made for 'The Last Tycoon'.](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7725/3862897_2_articleinline_1447983.jpg)
![Piers Morgan is a perfect example of a second coming: His career was dead in a ditch more than once but he has never been more influential than he is now. Piers Morgan is a perfect example of a second coming: His career was dead in a ditch more than once but he has never been more influential than he is now.](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7725/3862837_23_articleinline_2.9887939.jpg.jpg)
![Neither Bertie Ahern nor Enda Kenny endured scandals akin to Charles Stewart Parnell's. But perhaps the memory of the Uncrowned King of Ireland's speedy demise has lingered on long enough to warn others against attempting a comeback. Neither Bertie Ahern nor Enda Kenny endured scandals akin to Charles Stewart Parnell's. But perhaps the memory of the Uncrowned King of Ireland's speedy demise has lingered on long enough to warn others against attempting a comeback.](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7725/3862891_4_articleinline_Charles_Stewart_Parnell_-_Brady-Handy_1_.jpg)
Donald Trump’s presidency was widely viewed as an embarrassment by all but his most avowed acolytes, yet, if he can avoid prison, he looks ever more likely to return to the White House in January 2025.
Alastair Campbell was vilified by many as a Machiavellian spin doctor partly responsible for Tony Blair’s calamitous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but through his anti-Brexit campaigning and an unexpected pivot, becoming a podcast host opposite the equally adept shape-shifter Rory Stewart, he has reinvented himself as a plain-speaking voice of reason in troubled times. Blair, incidentally, has been touted as a potential panacea to the current Middle East crisis as — wait for it — an advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu!
Dunne remains the exception rather than the rule, however. Successive taoisigh have all but disappeared into the ether.