Myles Dungan writes over at Pue's Occurrences about the paralells between Charles Stewart Parnell and Bertie Ahern. It is really something to read and I'd encourage you to go now and read it. Just to whet the appetite:

A decade of unparalleled achievement came to nothing in a political world where asset can turn into liability with startling rapidity. But, as he was dead within the year, there was no time for an autobiography, ghost-written or otherwise.

In all of this are there any lessons to be learned in the frailty and transitory nature of indispensability by any twenty-first century Irish politicians? Perish the thought.

When I worked at Nonsuch Ireland, we republished Katherine O'Shea's interesting memoir of her time with Parnell. While not entirely accurate in some senses and definitely needing balance and perspective in places, it is nontheless a fascinating insight into the man and his thinking, in case you wanted one.