Politicians who never made it to the big time despite high profile starts

Royston Brady. Thought he was going to be the next Taoiseach

Sean Haughey. A TD for 25 of the last 30 years. Genuinely never hear of the guy other than when the election posters go up. Probably someone who was elected on the same family name that has also held him back from higher things.

Think he was Junior Minister for School Buses once.

Averil Power was very high-profile there for while, seemed destined for great things in FF at the time.

Noel Rock - out of politics now, but still finds time to get in the occasional spat with Maria Bailey on Twitter.

I heard him on a radio piece on the theme of 'life after politics', and he said that he had entered into business and was happy with the extra time for his family, etc.

He's still young, so who knows, stranger things have happened.

Terrence Flanagan - was young candidate, had an enormous grassroots machine behind him. I don't think he had been much in the eye of the wider public until he had disastrous radio interview that the interviewer cut short out of pity - not 'disastrous' in the conventional sense that they had him on the ropes on a policy issue or anything, but he literally could not form a sentence, very uncomfortable listening. Last seen joining Renua.

Brody Sweeney, of O'Briens Sandwiches fame, had a bit of fanfare when he joined FG about 10-15 years ago. I am not sure he was elected to anything in the end.

As well as being the youngest TD elected at 21.

He left politics of his own accord

Also John O'Leary to add to the list, former Dublin goalkeeper (though he ran in Wicklow).

This was going to be my reply. I remember visiting Dublin in 2004 and his face was on every lamppost as he was running for Europe at the time. There was a few different poster variations but all in the same style - they had a big picture of him and then some nonsense, meaningless, word on top like "Energy", "Passion", "Drive". This was the Celtic Tiger era so pretentious guff was all over the place but this was another level. He was the Lord Mayor of Dublin at the time and it seemed like he was going to be the next big star of FF. His campaign ended up flaming out though and according to wikipedia he lives in the USA now.

Kate O'Connell: She was tasked with taking out Lucinda Creighton in 2016 and she did just that. Got plenty of media appearances as a young, attractive pharmacist with good communication skills. The sky looked to be the limit for her. Things went wrong pretty quickly though. She backed the wrong horse in the 2017 leadership challenge, said some stupid things and made a mortal enemy of Leo Varadkar. Losing her seat in 2020 was bad but getting passed over for a Seanad nomination and then, worst of all, being completely overlooked for the nomination to run in last year's by-election.

She claims that she hasn't ruled out a return to politics but she's burned a lot of bridges in FG so it's difficult to see a path ahead for her especially while Varadkar is still leader of the party.

In more recent times -Saoirse McHugh.

I know that presidential candidates garner quite a lot of coverage as a rule, but she really did receive enormous exposure in television interviews and panel shows - on a whole range of topics, aside from the presidential election - for someone who never been elected to any position, not even councillor.

It was the European elections she was running in.

Nope. It was the 2019 European elections. This was the year after Casey had run for President. Both herself and Casey were running in the Midlands-North-West constituency. She was the Green Party candidate and criticised Casey in the televised debate and was seen as one of the star performers on that night. That was her debut as it were.

The talk of the '04 euro elections reminds me of the uniquely-named Clifford T. Reid, who ran on the memorable 'Stop the P**dophiles' ticket (am writing on a work device, you understand).

This unlikely platform garnered him a fairly staggering 40,000 votes(!) - he was not able to convert this support into any later electoral success, however.

As a campaign slogan, it was, if nothing else, unique, in a sea of "working hard for you" type blandness.

Eamonn Dunphy and Fintan O'Toole both made high-profile announcements that they intended running in the 2011 general election, and then neither followed through.

Brendan Ogle definitely looked like he going to run for election after the 'Home Sweet Home' thing a few years ago, but I think SF ate his lunch.

I’m open to correction but think he only failed to be elected as a TD once in 2011 when FF were wiped out.

he tried in 87 and 89 in dail elections while he was in the seanad and failed both times.