IN PARTY political terms, Fianna Fail is the phenomenon of Irish life. Few could have predicted that out of the ruins of Civil War defeat in 1923 a party would emerge that within a decade would become central to the stability of the entire party system.

The transformation of Fianna Fail from the extra constitutional party of 1926, to the "slightly constitutional party" of a few years later, to the protector of their very own Constitution in 1937, reflected a truly remarkable odyssey.

The party owed its initial success to a combination of factors. An attractive cluster of policies, blending national regeneration, economic growth and social welfare into a potent package, an efficient grass roots electoral organisation, and, in the extraordinary personality of Eamon de Valera, leadership qualities unrivalled in his, or perhaps any other, generation, sufficed to capture the commanding heights from Cumman na nGaedheal.

We still tend to grossly underrate the managerial skills of our party leaders. The outstanding examples of personnel management in this country are to be found in political parties. The greatest manager of all was de Valera. He had served a tough apprenticeship by the time he founded Fianna Fail in 1926, and has absorbed one crucial lesson. Having twice been at the centre of splits in Sinn Fein - on the Treaty in 1922, and on the oath in 1926 - the unity of the party now became a core leadership principle. Far from being a party dictator, de Valera worked tirelessly at massaging the egos - the powerful egos - of his colleagues and his followers.

This penchant for consensus could later become, as he grew older, a source of paralysis, allowing the slowest to dictate the pace. But he succeeded in binding to Fianna Fail a collection of strong willed, independent minded personalities such as P.J. Ruttledge, Sean MacEntee, Frank Aiken, Gerry Boland, Oscar Traynor, and Sean Lemass, as well as more conciliatory, but by no means weak personalities, like Jim Ryan and Sean T. O'Kelly, who would form a remarkable leadership cadre for nearly 40 years. These had all the strength of character of men who had been prepared to die for their ideals, a strength of conviction incomprehensible to their detractors today. In purely managerial terms it was an extraordinary performance.

Whatever one's views of de Valera's particular policies and most of them reflected the mood of the people he towered above all his contemporaries. So great was his dominance that there were real fears the party would flounder following his resignation in 1959 - a fear reflected in his futile attempt to change the electoral system from proportional representation to the straight vote.

NO subsequent party leader would enjoy the same intense loyalty as de Valera as he himself gloomily anticipated when handing on the baton to Sean Lemass in 1959. Lemass still carried sufficient authority, based partly on his active record in the independence movement, partly on his performance as Minister and organiser, to lead from the front. He bequeathed a rejuvenated - but potentially fractious - party to Jack Lynch in 1966. That fractiousness reared its head when the Northern Ireland volcano erupted once more in 1969. Lynch steered a safe course, but the consequences would fester for a generation.

Every Fianna Fail leader since has had to devote an inordinate amount of time to covering his back against internal threats, frequently based on resentments generated at that time. Mr Haughey's leadership, in particular, was plagued by the fallout, which diverted so much of his time that he rarely had the opportunity, at least until his 1987 government, to display the qualities which had led many to identify him as a potentially exceptional Taoiseach.

Having begun as a genuine radical party of the left - by Irish standards Fianna Fail subsequently shuffled - towards the centre as it hoovered up votes of respectable citizens impressed by its capacity to deliver stable government, and at times moved towards the right if it fancied those electoral pickings. It is now firmly positioned over a broad centre once more, poised to move either centre left or centre right for coalition purposes, depending on immediate circumstances.

This may seem a far cry from the principled rhetoric of de Valera. It isn't actually that far at all. Part of de Valera's genius as a propagandist was to project himself as a supreme idealist, hovering ethereally above the vulgar fray of baser mortals. Idealist he certainly was. But he was also a supreme pragmatist, his feet firmly on the ground even as his gaze was raised to heaven. And in nothing was he a greater realist than in electoral timing. The biggest single difference between himself and his successors as a party leader was that he got his timing right. Even he might have faced dissension if he hadn't delivered the goods so consistently.

Lynch, Haughey and Reynolds all went to the country at the wrong time - partly through bad luck with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of December 1972, and the Stardust and H Block tragedies of 1981, but through unforced errors in 1989 and 1992.

Dev never made an unforced electoral error. Even when he lost, as in 1948, his pre emptive strike probably helped nip Clann na Poblachta in the bud, before Sean MacBride would duly press the self destruct button.

Where de Valera was as much pragmatist as idealist, Lemass, projected as the supreme pragmatist, as much idealist as pragmatist.

Their styles differed much more than the substance of their thinking wanted a self confident, self respecting and self reliant Irish people, however much their means differed.

The change in the procedure for revising constituency boundaries, after the 1977 election, when authority was transferred from the Minister for Local Government to the Electoral Commission, had more far reaching consequences for Fianna Fail than for any other party, simply because it was the only one able to form a one party government. Even de Valera would not have won so many absolute majorities in seats but for the delicate massaging of constituency boundaries. Mr Haughey was unfairly blamed for failing to deliver absolute majorities in the changed circumstances. Nevertheless, the party remains an electoral phenomenon. It has failed to achieve its original objectives - a united Ireland, the revival of the Irish language, an independent small farm society. It has jettisoned core values as the "national interest" (getting back into government) dictated. Yet it has shown a stamina and a resilience baffling to those unsporting purists who feel that voters should punish ideological inconsistencies.

IT HAS not been easy to face in several directions simultaneously, keeping options open, while seeking to adjust to the shift from a society loudly proclaiming, if often betraying, the core value of community solidarity, to one in which the core value of no fault individualism has become much more widespread.

The Irish Press, for long its mains champion in the media, and which once had a marvellous rumbustious: quality about it, failed to adjust to changing circumstances and lost its, identity even before its demise. The party has also lost a certain amount of its identity, but it would be premature to proclaim its demise.

The future not only of Bertie Ahern, but of Fianna Fail itself, could depend hugely on the fallout after the next election. One of the demeaning developments of the last 20 years is the extent to which leaders, and not only in Fianna Fail, are cruelly exposed to the consequences of defeat. The price of defeat is bound to make leaders desperate for victory at almost any price. They cannot be blamed, for the alternative is not only the party's exclusion from government, but their own political demise.

Bertie Ahern's leadership will obviously be at risk if Fianna Fail fails to re enter government after the next election. Indeed, the party itself will face a trauma. Because office has been the glue that has held it together - it has never been out of office for two successive governments a failure to recapture office would deal it a particularly severe blow. Other parties have long adjusted to opposition as a way of life. Fianna Fail is psychologically orphaned in opposition.

With party politics now so fluid, the fortunes of Fianna Fail for a generation to come may depend disproportionately on whatever the fates have in store in the next 18 months.