I was a rookie at an unloved little newspaper in Cavan when Mary Robinson toured the country for the 1990 Presidential election.
I interviewed her in our tiny, rat-infested offices where, with her characteristic stiffness softened by a prodigious attempt at warmth, she explained why she was running.
She wanted to reform the Presidency, make it more active, she said, over a chipped mug of instant coffee. But also she wanted to democratise the process of choosing our head of State.
There hadn't been a Presidential election in 17 years, and the Park had been more or less handed back and forth among various éminences grises for five decades without inspiring anyone. We'd had 14 years of Paddy Hillery by then and there had hardly been a single interesting moment (or at least none that we knew about at the time - Brian Lenihan's phone calls to Hillery didn't emerge until later).
As it happened, that campaign turned into a bit of a bloodbath. People posted the snipped-off fingers of rubber gloves to Robinson because she was in favour of access to condoms; Pádraig Flynn accused her of having a 'new-found interest' in her family; Lenihan, famously, was ruined. By gum, those were good times.
Since then we've come to expect decent sport when the Presidential election comes around and - barring those occasions when the incumbent goes forward unopposed for a second term - we've had it. Because the Presidency doesn't particularly matter - even though at every election we all conspire to pretend that it does - the election of President is a bit of harmless fun.
Remember the 2011 contest? Reputations in tatters, bloodstrewn bodies littering the battlefield, limping casualties, writs flying. Nostalgic sigh.
You can say what you like about dignified campaigns, but there's nothing like a bit of gladiatorial combat to add to the gaiety of nations.
All credit to Maria Steen, right, she gave us the one bit of theatre in this Presidential election we're likely to get. The only good-looking member of the Iona Institute had the support of 17 Oireachtas members by Tuesday night.
Then she had 18 yesterday morning. Could she reach 20 by midday yesterday? She could not. Or could she? Honest to God, there were people saying the Rosary for her. Those were a few hours of pleasurable suspense, at least.
Steen is routinely described as a barrister and a stay-at-home mother, which seems a remarkable feat, as I'd have thought you couldn't be both, unless the workload of a barrister is even less exacting than we've long suspected it to be. I find the designation calls to mind the joke about the Cork mother: 'Quick, quick, my son the doctor is drowning.'
But at any rate, it became clear at length that even an ambidextrous job description and a pretty smile are not enough to break down the rigid barrier of party politics. The main political parties are running this Presidential election their way, and nothing and no one - no matter how smooth or plausible - is going to get in their way. Steen is out.
It's perhaps ironic that an arch-conservative like Maria Steen - who heretofore has not exactly been four-square behind people's freedom to act in accordance with their own consciences without reference to anyone else's - should have becomethe poster girl for freedom of choice.
Steen wouldn't have won, even if she'd got the nomination. The Irish people are too sensible to elect someone who wants the Eighth Amendment back and who thinks the climate justice movement is, to use her own words, 'a pagan cult'. But it wasn't about her winning - indeed, it doesn't really matter who wins - it was about the participation.
The Constitution simply says every candidate for President must be nominated by at least 20 Oireachtas members or at least four county councils.
The Constitution is silent on the subject of Oireachtas members and county councils being whipped into shape by party leaders. But this has not gone down well, and you don't have to be a Steen supporter or a foaming-atthe-mouth libertarian to feel sore about it. We like to feel we have an influence on the Presidency - more of an influence than this.
Conor McGregor, during his creepy flirtation with a candidacy, threatened to expose the failures of Irish democracy if he couldn't get a nomination.
Instead it's Steen who's done that. Neither candidate might have got a nomination even without the whip arrangement, but the whip makes the whole thing stink. And it's made it a lot less fun.
Now there's no candidate nominated by local authorities this time around, and instead, like in 1990, we have just three Oireachtas-nominated candidates - one who seems on the point of careering out of control any second and two plodders who could bore for Ireland. Two boring candidates is at least one too many in a Presidential election. I'd go so far as to say it's two too many.
So we've been denied our constitutional claim to have a say in who runs for President. And we've also been denied the entertainment of a sulphurous election contest.
At least there's only a month left of listening to the candidates wittering on about 'empowerment' and, blah, blah, 'engaging with communities'. But I won't be at all surprised if the electorate responds on polling day with a collective sulk.
