Hugh Gibbons:Dr Hugh Gibbons, who has died aged 91 years, might well have secured ministerial office if he had not been sharing a constituency with a serving Fianna Fáil minister.
Dr Gibbons was an outstanding Roscommon Gaelic footballer, popular medical doctor and community activist.
His first electoral contest was when he unsuccessfully contested a byelection in Roscommon in 1964. However, he made it to the Dáil in the following year's general election.
In the 1969 election, he was returned for the new constituency of Roscommon-Leitrim, following a revision of the constituencies, and his fellow Fianna Fáil TD was a senior minister, Brian Lenihan. The distribution of the ministerial spoils, with the inevitable geographical considerations, meant that the affable Keadue-based doctor would have to wait his time.
There was an electoral shock in the 1973 election, when Lenihan, outgoing minister for foreign affairs, lost his seat. Nationally, Fianna Fáil lost power and Dr Gibbons retired from politics in 1977, as Lenihan retrieved his political fortunes when re-elected to the Dáil.
Dr Gibbons was born in Ballybeg, Strokestown, Co Roscommon. He was educated at Summerhill College, Sligo, and at UCG. He qualified as a doctor in 1940, and worked as a house surgeon in Roscommon county hospital and as district medical officer in Newport, Co Mayo, and, later, in Keadue.
He was secretary of the Keadue development body from 1955 to 1960, beginning a long local involvement.
Dr Gibbons won All-Ireland medals with Roscommon in 1943 and 1944. As an administrator, he served as chairman of the county GAA board, from 1948 to 1954, and as a member of the Connacht council from 1954 to 1964.
He married Josephine Lee, who predeceased him, and they had four sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Brian, is a medical doctor and the minister for social justice and local government in the Welsh assembly.
He was succeeded in the Dáil by the late Seán Doherty.
Dr Gibbons had no doubt about his loyalty to Jack Lynch in the aftermath of the 1970 arms crisis when Lynch sacked Charlie Haughey. In 1977, feeling that he had been misrepresented, Dr Gibbons wrote to The Irish Times to stress that he had supported Lynch since his election as leader in 1966.
"I have many times stated what I sincerely believe: that Fianna Fáil would now be a fragmented and impotent party following 1970, but for the resolute and unequivocable leadership of Mr Lynch."
Hugh Gibbons: born July 16th, 1916; died November 14th, 2007