UnforGavin

Mob turned guns on Jim as soon as there was a whiff of a scandal

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DOOMED Jim Gavin with Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin

DESERVE'S got nothing to do with it.

It's how Clint Eastwood's coldblooded killer William Munny describes life and death in Unforgiven, his brutal take on the old west.

In the shootout that is Ireland's presidential race there is also only the quick and the dead.

This week Jim Gavin found out the hard way how unforgiving a street fight it can be.

The former Dublin GAA boss found himself at the mercy of the social media lynch mobs as they sensed a mighty fine day for a hanging.

Whether he deserved it or not was lost in the frenzy and the bloodlust.

He was wanted for committing one of Ireland's deadliest sins, being a landlord that had gone rogue.

In 2009 he kept €3,300 in overpaid rent money that was not his.

To anyone who has watched and admired Gavin's career in public service and in sport, it remains utterly baffling.

Baffling how such a meticulous organiser and planner could leave himself open to such a glaring ambush.

Mystifying how a man who has lived by a code of decency and duty and honour could be guilty of such shabby treatment of a tenant.

LANDMINE

Who - whatever his financial circumstances at the time - couldn't find the means in the intervening years to settle the debt that lay like a landmine on any future path he might walk.