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The old line about Dev spinning in his grave has been uttered more times in recent years than most can count.
But if de Valera is not right now spinning and doing cartwheels over the state of the party he founded, the description that stands in for astonishment at dramatic political change is for ever redundant.
Irish people of a certain age remember de Valera as the embodiment of Irish political continuity. He was taoiseach for many years, and president seemingly for ever. His party, Fianna Fáil, itself seemed to have a lock on political power, with occasional stints in opposition being seen as temporary aberrations.
The Soldiers of Destiny, Irish voters were reminded at every election time, were just that, their part the "natural" party of government.
Well, things just ain't natural anymore.
FF watchers - and there are still plenty of them around whatever about voters - have been agog in recent days over the airing of party dirty laundry, largely by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern who crops up this week in a TV documentary that has him complaining about grassroots party members, who, in Bertie's view, have been useless good-for-nothings.
Suffice it to say, current party leader Micheál Martin is not pleased. Meantime, the soldiers couldn't find anybody to step into the breach that is the presidential election. This more than anything is what has the grizzled veteran FF watchers gobsmacked.
The view from the top was that a Fianna Fáil candidate would get such a drubbing at the presidential poll in October that the party might just as well run Dev's ghost. Now there's an idea. If nothing else it would keep the spirits up at what's remains of the party's once vaunted grassroots army.
RACE, YAWN, RACE, YADA
Meanwhile, there are candidates in the race for the Irish presidency who some with tags that are not Fianna Fáil but the race itself is hardly setting voters alight.
Here's Brian Brennan in the Irish Independent: "When pick up our ballot papers on October 27 and contemplate the list of presidential candidates on offer, it would be nice to have the option of placing our X in a box labeled 'none of the above.'
"As things stand, it seems quite possible that a majority of voters would choose the 'none of the above' option. In that event, the presidency should be put on hold for four or five years. We could tell the IMF that the consequent savings were yet another austerity measure, further evidence of Irish determination to reach the targets set by the troika.
"In the absence of such an option, and if the situation does not change radically, it seems drearily probable that most people will simply not bother to vote at all, such is the undignified, near farcical nature of the competition so far, and the uninspiring cast of declared candidates."
So there it is, a cast of uninspiring characters in pursuit of a political office that, while wholly constitutional as opposed to executive in nature, has been seen as a proud projection of Irish achievement and ambitions during the back-to-back reigns of Mary R and Mary M.
Of course, if they are all bored to tears with this contest back in the wee sod they could stir things bit by opening the vote in the presidential election to the diasporties over the various horizons, this despite all those nasty foreign airs and graces they have undoubtedly picked up in exile.
Hold your breadth for that and Dev will be out of his box on Judgment Day.
BRATTON'S LOT
Poor Bill Bratton. A policeman's lot is not a happy one in his case, at least for the time being.
Turns out that they don't want a Yank running things at Scotland Yard even though recent events would lend to the view that the place could do with a bit of American verve and know how.
Bratton was widely tipped for the post of Metropolitan Police Commissioner in London and indeed tipped his hat by telling the Guardian newspaper that he was "seriously interested" in the top bobby job.
But it's not to be, despite support for the idea from prime minister David Cameron. The job, it turns out, has to be filled by a Briton, as opposed to a Bratton.
All is not lost, however, as Bratton is being taken on by Scotland Yard - actually New Scotland Yard if one is being precise - as an unpaid consultant.
Presumably, that means a free cup of tea, and perhaps even a break on a parking ticket should the former top cop in New York and Los Angeles, turn up for a visit and forget to feed the meter.
NED'S DNA
Since he became rather fashionable in recent times - a kind of Che Guevara with a bucket on his head as opposed to a beret - half the population of Australia has been claiming family ties to bushranger Ned Kelly, who, by another definition, might actually be Australia's prototype republican, a founding father of modern Oz.
Now that DNA tests have definitively identified headless remains as those of Kelly, the popular family tree might be in for a bit of scientific trimming. But that will not lessen the international interest in the life of a man who, to this day, remains something of a puzzle for those historians who like to precisely define people and events.
DNA tests last week confirmed that a set of bones discovered at a former prison in Melbourne are Kelly's. Scientists used DNA from one of Kelly's confirmed descendants to confirm the identity of the remains.
Kelly was hanged in Melbourne Jail on Nov. 11th, 1880, his reported last worlds being "such is life." He was just 25. Now it will be possible to finally bury him, all on his lonesome.
The nature of this absolutely final resting place, the words inscribed, will say much of Australia's final verdict on the man. IF will watch this from afar, but with close interest.
