She defeated Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan and Fine Gael's Austin Currie in the 1990 presidential election becoming, as an Independent candidate nominated by the Labour Party, the Workers ' Party and independent senators, the first elected president in the office's history not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil.

* November 1 – Mary Robinson defeats odds-on favourite Brian Lenihan to become the first female President of Ireland.

Younger men such as Brian Lenihan, Charles Haughey, Patrick Hillery and Michael Hilliard were all given their first Cabinet portfolios by Lemass, and ministers who joined under de Valera, such as Jack Lynch, Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland were promoted by the new Taoiseach.

He first achieved prominence in 1990 when the contents of his on-the-record interview with then Tánaiste Brian Lenihan, in which Lenihan admitted making calls to the residence of the Irish president seeking to speak to President Hillery to urge him to refuse a Dáil dissolution in controversial circumstances ( something he had previously denied ), led to Lenihan's dismissal from government, his defeat in that year's Irish presidential election and the unexpected election of the left wing liberal Mary Robinson as President of Ireland.

He decided to raise the issue of the calls again on the programme, given that in the preceding week Lenihan changed his story of eight years and had now denied twice, first in a student debate, then in an Irish Press interview with Emily O ' Reilly, making any calls.

Lenihan went on to become the first candidate from his party ever to lose an Irish presidential election, with the Irish Labour Party candidate, Mary Robinson, eventually winning the office.

Lenihan was the first, and so far the only, Fianna Fáil candidate to lose an Irish presidential election.

O ' Rourke and her brother, Brian Lenihan, became the first brother and sister in Irish history to serve in the same cabinet.

Lenihan was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1997 general election.

Lenihan was accused of calling and attempting to influence the President, who as Head of State is above politics.

Brian Lenihan returned to Irish politics with a new lease of life.

Lenihan remained active in politics right up to his death in 1995.

Other famous examples of catch all parties include the Republic of Ireland's Fianna Fáil, which has variously been categorised as socialist ( according to former deputy leader Brian Lenihan ) and neo-Thatcherite / neo-Reaganite, a description applied to the economic policies and politics of former Minister for Finance ( 1997 – 2004 ) Charles McCreevy.

Their pressure backfired, particularly when his campaign manager, Bertie Ahern, named Duffy as the person to whom he had given the interview in a radio broadcast, forcing a besieged Duffy to reverse an earlier decision and release the relevant segment of his interview with Lenihan.

However when the minority party in government, the Progressive Democrats, threatened to quit government unless Lenihan resigned or was sacked, and Lenihan refused to resign, the Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, instructed President Hillery to sack him.

In 1982, when Fianna Fáil regained power for ten months, Lenihan was Minister for Agriculture, the announcement in the Dáil being greeted by a sustained round of laughter on the opposition benches.

In opposition, Lenihan and Haughey attracted some international criticism when, against the advice of senior Irish-American politicians Senator Edward Kennedy and Speaker Tip O ' Neill, they campaigned against the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which the government of Garret FitzGerald had signed with the British government of Margaret Thatcher and which gave the Republic an advisory role in the governance of Northern Ireland.

She supported the attack on Cowen by her nephew, former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who said he was " disappointed " by Cowen's performance and he had to provide the leadership when the Taoiseach did not.

He was succeeded by a Fine Gael-Labour coalition led by Enda Kenny, which took power on 9 March 2011 ; because Cowen was no longer a TD when the new Dáil convened, he was unable to preside over the opening ; Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin and outgoing Finance Minister Brian Lenihan appeared on the government front bench in his stead.

This followed on from the outrage caused when Duffy was held responsible by Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, for inciting widespread public fear that Irish citizens were on the verge of losing their savings.

Lenihan was involved in some controversy on 18 May 2005, when off-microphone he told opposition TD Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party that he should " stick to the kebabs ", a reference to the Turkish workers who were making a legal challenge against their employer, GAMA.

In September 2010, Lenihan attracted controversy when it emerged that he was to attend the launch of The Origin of Specious Nonsense, an anti-evolution book by John J.

Six One established its own place in political history when the expected winner of the 1990 presidential election campaign, Tánaiste Brian Lenihan delivered what was universally accepted to be a disastrous live response to a crisis in his campaign.

Aware that Lenihan had been one of Duffy's sources for the original article in September, with Duffy's permission the Irish Times ran a front page story stating that Lenihan had made the calls he was now denying.

Brian Lenihan played in the 1955 FAI Cup tie against Sligo Rovers and later ran for President of Ireland.

He also ran at the 1996 by-election caused by the death of Brian Lenihan, Snr.

Fianna Fáil chose Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Brian Lenihan.

Notwithstanding, Fianna Fáil knew they could count on Lenihan to mount a barnstorming campaign in the last few weeks.

It emerged during the campaign that what Lenihan had told friends and insiders in private flatly contradicted his public statements on a controversial effort in 1982 by the then opposition Fianna Fáil to pressure President Hillery into refusing a parliamentary dissolution to then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald ; Hillery had resolutely rejected the pressure.

Three candidates had been nominated in the 1990 presidential election: the then Tánaiste, Brian Lenihan from Fianna Fáil ( widely viewed as the certain winner ), Austin Currie from Fine Gael and Mary Robinson from Labour.

The failure to get the Fianna Fáil candidate, Brian Lenihan, elected as President of Ireland added to the pressure on Haughey's leadership.

Duffy became the subject of mounting political and media pressure, with his silence being spun by Fianna Fáil press staff as evidence that the rumours that Lenihan had confirmed to him that he had made calls were false.

When he got there, he was informed that a series of telephone calls had been made by senior opposition figures ( and some independent TDs ), including Fianna Fáil leader ( and ex-Taoiseach ) Charles Haughey, Brian Lenihan and Sylvester Barrett demanding that the President, as he could constitutionally do where a Taoiseach had ' ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann ', refuse FitzGerald a parliamentary dissolution, forcing his resignation as Taoiseach and enabling the Dáil to nominate someone else for the post.

Initially, Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan had been favourite to win, however after a number of controversies arising from the brief Fianna Fáil administration of 1981 – 82, and Lenihan's dismissal as Minister for Defence mid-way through the campaign, the Labour Party's Mary Robinson emerged victorious.

In 1990 Fianna Fáil's nominee in the presidential election was Brian Lenihan.

Brian Patrick Lenihan ( 17 November 1930 – 1 November 1995 ) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician, who served in a range of cabinet positions, most notably as Tánaiste ( deputy Prime Minister ), Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Justice.

Lenihan sat for many years as a Fianna Fáil representative in both houses of the Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann.

Of the four Fianna Fáil candidates Lenihan was the only one not to be elected.

Lenihan moved his political base from rural Roscommon to Dublin County West, where he was elected again as a TD at the 1977 general election landslide victory by Fianna Fáil.

Haughey, seeking to weaken the faction supporting Colley, appointed Lenihan as Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post he held until Fianna Fáil lost power in 1981.

In 1987 Fianna Fáil returned to power and Lenihan was for the third and final time appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the additional post of Tánaiste ( deputy prime minister ).

In January 1990 leaks to the media suggested that Lenihan was considering seeking the Fianna Fáil nomination in the Irish presidential election, which was due in November 1990.

During leadership campaigns against Charles Haughey in the 1980s, Lenihan had regularly appeared on television to insist that Fianna Fáil was not divided, even as ministers were resigning and fisticuffs broke out in the environs of Leinster House.

When Lenihan's campaign manager, Bertie Ahern, named Duffy on radio as someone who had interviewed Lenihan back in May, a political storm erupted in which the journalist was put under siege by the media and Fianna Fáil, leading to his reluctant decision, after consulting with lawyers, to release the portion of the tape in which Lenihan talked about the events of January 1982.

The Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fáil's coalition partner, told Charles Haughey that unless Lenihan was either dismissed or an inquiry set up into the events of January 1982 it would pull out of government, support the opposition motion and force a general election.