FG grabs a share of Irish feelgood factor

Fine Gael doesn't believe in making life easy for itself. Any other party would schedule its leadership vote for a quiet news day, to maximise publicity for the victor. But fresh from electoral meltdown, the Blueshirts went head-to-head with the Boys in Green yesterday, and the Ireland-Germany World Cup showdown.

At best it was another example of the bad timing which has afflicted the organisation of late. At worst it was the costliest own goal since the Colombian Andreas Escobar scored for the US in 1994. Either way, it seemed apt when the result was announced in front of an out-of-session Leinster House, one of the few places in the Republic where the national flag wasn't flying yesterday.

And yet there was a definite feelgood factor to the parliamentary party that emerged from the three-hour meeting with Enda Kenny as its new leader. Even the losers were smiling, although no one smiled as broadly as Kenny himself. Sixteen months after losing to Michael Noonan and then being excluded from the front bench, he looked like a man who was ready to break into a verse of The Fields of Athenry ( the verse that goes: "Michael, they have taken you away").

Some accounts of the meeting even suggested that the party has learned to laugh itself. Having earlier watched the game from Japan on TV, the candidates reportedly sought self-endorsing lessons from Ireland's World Cup experiences.

Phil Hogan argued that a team should always have a big man up front, a tactic on which Jack Charlton relied. In reply, Mr Kenny pointed out that while it was a glancing header from Niall Quinn that set up Ireland's equaliser yesterday, it took a more diminutive player to score.

Having scored himself in the sceret ballot, the Mayo TD didn't attempt a double somersault in celebration, always a dangerous move in the Leinster House car-park.

But he did announce that the party had ended its "political mourning". And as June sunshine bathed the party, for once it seemed Fine Gael had picked a good time to start anew.