Mr Michael McDowell (48) has been called many things down the years: a Rottweiler, playground bully, once even "the biggest political cry-baby in Irish politics".
Now he gets to be called by the title he has always wanted.
The barrister and former TD will become attorney general later this month and, in the process, complete a personal quest which took him to the highs and lows of political life.
He was twice elected to the Dail and twice lost his seat, on the last occasion by fewer than 50 votes. Fate ensured that when the Progressive Democrats were in government, he found himself sitting on the sidelines.
While he is synonymous with the PDs, his background is deeply Fine Gael. His grandfather was Eoin MacNeill, the founder of the Irish Volunteers who tried to call off the 1916 Rising and later became minister for finance and education. His grand-uncle was James MacNeill, governor-general of the Irish Free State in the 1930s.
As a young barrister who was friendly with the family of the then Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, he was earmarked as a future star for Fine Gael. However, he had no electoral success, failing to win a seat on Dublin City Council on his only outing for the party in 1979.
He was Dr FitzGerald's director of elections in 1982 and became chairman of the Fine Gael Dublin South East constituency under the coalition government.
Within three years, however, he had resigned from the post after berating the former Taoiseach for failing to curb Labour's ideological and spending inclinations.
His move to the Progressive Democrats was a natural one. From the start he focused party aims on reducing the national debt and cutting taxes.
He was chairman of the PDs between 1989 and 1992 and acted as spokesman on foreign affairs, trade and tourism, Northern Ireland and finance.
Labelled "right-wing", he always maintained his ideology was closer to radical liberalism than conservatism.
First elected to the Dail in 1987 for Dublin South East, he lost his seat in 1989 and won it back in 1992. The second defeat in June 1997 came as a shock, albeit a drawn-out one.
It took six days to complete the Dublin South East count which propelled Mr John Gormley of the Green Party into Leinster House and Mr McDowell into early retirement, or, at least, into returning to his busy legal practice.
He resigned from the PDs last year amid reports of a rift with the party leader, Ms Mary Harney. However, it was not long before he was back in the fold, reinvented as an expert legal adviser to the Government.
Last November the Tanaiste appointed him chairman of the Company Law Compliance and Enforcement Committee.
Born in Dublin in May 1951, Mr McDowell was the youngest in a family of five children. He was educated in Pembroke Primary School, Gonzaga College and University College Dublin where he studied economics and politics.
After university, he studied law at King's Inns, following in the footsteps of his barrister father. He was called to the Bar in 1974 and became a senior counsel in 1987 at the age of 36.
He is married to Dr Niamh Brennan. They have three sons, Hugh, Ross and John.
