47 Comments

• zelda Applebea | Aug 30, 2012, 02:15 PM EDT

  You go Michael D! How right you are. Pity we didn't get to hear on this clip what exactly was said to provoke this response but his life's work on peace and human rights across all nationalities indiscriminatly gives this piece great authority.

• IrelandNorth | Aug 27, 2012, 09:54 AM EDT

  This interview was 2010. The year before A Úasal/His Excellency Úachtarán Michéal Daniel Ó h'Úigeann/President Michael D Higgins was elected to office by over one million votes - (the equivelant of the whole unionist population of Northern[ised] Ireland (NI). He's generally considered to be a man of honour and considerable integrity, his last speech to Dáil Éireann/Hse of Reps being critical of excessive property ownership by the Irish political elite. Criticism of American domestic and/or foreign politics is NOT ridicule of Americans. Real friends tell you when you're out of line. Self serving sychphants tell you what they know your ego wants to hear. As an Irishman living in the 26 ounties (unlike others who are from the 6 counties but live and work in southern England), I personally welcome constructive criticism from Americans or otherwise. I wouldn't expect less from friends. Pres Higgins is prevented from being political. The reemergence of this audio clip is undoubtedly to aid the Obama relection camp. As for myself - I'm forever on the side of the working person and whoever best represents their interests anywhere, anytime.

• seanomelb | Aug 26, 2012, 09:12 PM EDT

  STEVENSTAR can only post in capitals.He's an angry and frustrated teabagger

• GregShox | Aug 26, 2012, 03:21 PM EDT

  Stevenstar -- Are you saying that an Irish citizen has no right to disagree with a foreign commentator broadcasting on Irish radio?

• GregShox | Aug 26, 2012, 09:56 AM EDT

  Borefield -- You must have found every idiot between Derry and Kerry, because the Irish president has no role in government, and you show your own ignorance of our system with that ridiculous statement. By the way, did you ever ask yourself why so many fools were attracted to you?

• seanomelb | Aug 26, 2012, 12:23 AM EDT

  Tom Swinford I was about to reply to stevenstar but I find it mentally debilitating flogging commonsense to duds

• STEVENSTAR | Aug 25, 2012, 11:26 PM EDT

  THIS IDIOT HAS MADE NO IMPACT IN IRELAND WHAT SO EVER.. AS FOR COMMENTING ON AMERICAN POLITICS ITS NONE OF HIS BUSINESS. IM IRISH AND LIVE IN IRELAND AND THIS IDIOT SHOULD BE SENT OFF TO THE RETIREMENT HOME AND LET SOMEONE YOUNGER AND MORE IN TOUCH WITH IRISH SOCIETY DO THE JOB, BESIDES SWANNING BACK AND FORTH TO AMERICA !!!

• POL O L | Aug 25, 2012, 04:15 PM EDT

  Michael D,I never knew he had large ones!Good on you .He said it as it is,Tea Party,A bunch of Nutters.

• Breathnach | Aug 25, 2012, 12:50 PM EDT

  Borefield - talk about displaying your ignorance. The Taoiseach and the Fine Gael/Labour government run the country. The President is a ceremonial role with no powers.

• Breathnach | Aug 25, 2012, 12:15 PM EDT

  I am with seanomelb and jerryoneill on this one. Way to go, Michael D. I loved it! Michael Graham, for once, was on the receiving end and from this genteel, professorial Irish president, gor a brief lesson in history. To jerryoneill's point, I never thought I would see the day in America when we could be so dumbed down as a nation: Ignorance is good, even virtuous; stupidity is better, and intelligence is suspect, maybe even un-American. We seem to have become a half-a-nation of dunces. The Tea Party Movement and its followers, like populist movements in the past, will eventually crash and burn like populist movements in the past - and we will heal eventually.

• faberm1 | Aug 25, 2012, 09:54 AM EDT

  I think the Michael D Higgins is a bully and a loudmouth. This is not an exchange. It is him brow beating someone on Irish radio. It was a dialogue about Israel and Palestine which he used as an opportunity to spout off his own socialistic ideal of the world and how HE thinks America should work. It's NONE OF HIS BUSINESS. He should mind the affairs of his own country and stay out of ours.

• jerryoneill | Aug 25, 2012, 09:50 AM EDT

  Well said Michael.The tea party is a fine collection of know nothing idiots who are so dumb they are voting against themselves. Romney/Ryan are for those making above $250k a year and plan on dismantling Social security. So if you are not among the rich and you don't mind losing your social security that you paid into for years and you are in the tea party you are a fkn idiot.

• kinvara7 | Aug 25, 2012, 07:53 AM EDT

  @borefield: The President of Ireland has no real political power. The office is not comparable with that of the US President and Irish people know this. When was this trip? A few months ago? Higgins was only elected in October of Last year to a largely ceremonial office. Therefore, given the nature of his position, what change do you think he should have brought about in that time? I doubt if the conversations you speak of took place; when you say: 'I HEARD these responses with my ears, not pull them out for to knock him' [sic], my first thought is: sir doth protest too much.

• borefield | Aug 25, 2012, 06:50 AM EDT

  GregShox, I traveled from Derry to Kerry and had conversations with the local people from various backgrounds. When asked how they felt how their President was doing? The first inclination was to laugh then, get serious and say, " look around you and see the devastation" . I realize it just didn't start with his election. He promised Hope and Change like someone else I know but didn't deliver. Some say he is just too old and tired to lead a country with so many problems. I HEARD these responses with my ears, not pull them out for to knock him. At the time I was there I did not know about the TeaParty exchange, just read that in IC. No, I am not a TeaParty member nor have I ever made a contribution to their cause. I am very neutral . Peace my dear.

• GregShox | Aug 25, 2012, 05:52 AM EDT

  Borefield, his countrymen say no such thing about him. You just pulled that out of your ear. And he has every right to challenge anyone who comes on our national radio spouting teabagger rhetoric.

• Silling | Aug 25, 2012, 03:06 AM EDT

  The Irish flock to America and every nationality in the world, given a chance, would choose the US over all other countries to live in. Ireland has always been a breeding ground for supplying workers to the colonies and will continue to do so Mr Higgins. We can't run our country and Admiral Bismark was correct when he said. " If the Dutch went to Ireland, they could feed the world and if the Irish came to Holland, Germany would have a port on her western frontier " Basically, Mr. Higgins, we are nothing but a nation of wankers.

• seanomelb | Aug 24, 2012, 11:59 PM EDT

  borefield speaking out of his teabagging ar$e no facts just drivvel.

• weeknocky | Aug 24, 2012, 11:27 PM EDT

  If those who think social security is a hand out from the government...the recipients have been paying in and the politicians have been "borrowing" from the fund for years..Democrats and Republicans. Making up stories and providing statistics that have no basis in fact is part of the socialist agenda. Someone wrote about "teabaggers" being senior citizens...I guess that would be me, still working for the last 62 years.

• Maggie47 | Aug 24, 2012, 09:51 PM EDT

  Careful Mr. Higgins the USA is the the best friend Ireland ever had or will ever have. Don't screw it up.

• borefield | Aug 24, 2012, 09:39 PM EDT

  GregShox, irregardlessof who he was speaking to he critized the Tea Party Movement. I certainly did not stupidly assume the first hand condition of His country, it's pathetic and his countrymen say he is lazy, old and living the good life while the majority suffer. This is not assumption, it's a live account of his Presidency, so get over yourself.

• borefield | Aug 24, 2012, 09:33 PM EDT

  GregShox, irregar

• mairint | Aug 24, 2012, 09:03 PM EDT

  Pres. Higgins may know a lot about the U.S.A. but he is a dyed in the wool Labour man. How could he possibly be unbiased?? Such a pity that he was elected as President of Ireland. Not a patch on his predecessors - except for the feminist herself on the upward climb agenda to the U.N. No, the Irish are not enamoured with the resident of An Arus.

• GregShox | Aug 24, 2012, 07:58 PM EDT

  Borefield, Higgins was answering an American Tea Party journalist talking on Irish radio, not a candidate as you stupidly assumed.

• borefield | Aug 24, 2012, 07:54 PM EDT

  Michael, you are a phoney and a coward. You have a nerve to critize anything about an Americam candidate. I just returned from a trip to your country and here are just a few of the reasons why. #1, you are not liked, most say you should be retired and enjoying your lavish pension unlike the majority of your fellow countrymen who have no hope of ever even coming close to getting what you are or will. #2, have you looked at the state of your economy, the unemployment rate, the cost of living, your pathetic health care, the closing of hospitals, the lack of doctors, above all the percentage of suicides , especially among the youth, your drug and alcohol problems, the immigration rate of your young people, homes and businesses boarded up as one travelles along the roads. Your social services are so convoluted they defy logic, foreigners coming in, signing up for social assistance, getting it then returning to their respective country, returning to Ireland a few months later to sign on the dotted line again to continue receiving benefits for their families living abroad. Mr. Higgins , your country is a BIG MESS, you dare to critize or blast what a political candidate does in mine. I kissed the ground when I arrived back in the good old USA with all it warts and pimples. God Bless the United States of America.

• seanomelb | Aug 24, 2012, 05:50 PM EDT

  There you again Briano defending the "elite" as the middle class sink into poverty. Well done Michael D you certainly put Graham in his place.

• cillowen | Aug 24, 2012, 02:36 PM EDT

  he's right about the many wankers who support Romney - it says much for their anti this and that rhetoric.

• citizen69 | Aug 24, 2012, 01:54 PM EDT

  I enjoyed his wee rant! @JBRAFTREE: i think this was a long debate that was edited down to a few minutes. A lot of stuff relevant to Isreal was probably edited out.

• JBRAFTREE | Aug 24, 2012, 01:21 PM EDT

  He kinda' had me until he slipped in the part of the part of 'killin' the Jews', where did that come from??????

• GuinnessGrrl | Aug 24, 2012, 01:14 PM EDT

  @christilcaugh I agree with you but Truman was a Democrat. He was FDR's vice-president when FDR died.

• Silling | Aug 24, 2012, 12:35 PM EDT

  Socialism can be cured, prescriptions are for sale at your nearest Lottery outlet.

• mamaginnty | Aug 24, 2012, 12:09 PM EDT

  Usually IC has tales about Ireland and we irish have to listen to the waffling of Americans telling how bad we are, and blah blah blah, now the shoe is on the other foot and boy they don't like it. Michael D did say he was not meaning the ordinary people of America, but they should wake up to what is really going on in the country, between drone plane killings, kidnaps, chemtrail spraying, so called suicides, the CIA and FBI are ruling you all, along with Rothschild, the big Pharma and oil companies. Free speech is now gone, they will thrown you into a physco ward if you dare to speak out.

• jamieLM | Aug 24, 2012, 12:08 PM EDT

  @kinvara7: I've never made a comment about who the Irish should or should not elect to any political office or what political policies they should or should not implement. I consider those topics the business of the Irish.

• ancavker | Aug 24, 2012, 11:32 AM EDT

  Many of the tea baggers, although right in some matters, are woefully uninformed on most matters, just like so many on the left. The tea baggers and more than a few ironically are union members wnat cuts, in spending they just do not want their benefits cut. There should be shared sacrifice across the board, either we all take cuts, or nobody gets cut. We also cannot have a situation where 50% of Americans pay no income tax, everyone should pay something no matter how small, as we all have a stake in the country. Also the Repubs cannot talk about cutting without cutting defense spending, and bringing our troops home from place they do not belong. The sad reality is the system is broken and both parties are a dismal failure. Americans are waking up to that fact as witnessed by ho well Ron Paul has has done. Hope and change did not work, and a rerun of 8 years of Bush will not work either.

• ancavker | Aug 24, 2012, 11:26 AM EDT

  kinvara: Of course I do. The point is more than a few Irish from Ireland come on here, and tell us we have no right to comment on what happens in Ireland, and yet they freely comment on what happens in America. Just like years ago, when the north was burning, no Irish-American could comment on that as we do not live there and we do not know. Yet so many Irish felt free to comment on all the wrongs the U.S. has done, whether valid or not. All I am saying is that the Irish in Ireland cannot have it both ways.

• LwaoiseNíMhaol | Aug 24, 2012, 11:16 AM EDT

  Here is the whole interview... http://www.newstalk.ie/2012/featured-5-slideshow-homepage/michael-d-higgins-vs-michael-graham-on-newstalk/ ...We the Irish nation stand behind our president...oh by the way before anyone goes criticsing our country...our economy is recovering our debt was judged to be not sovreign debt but the private debt of multinational banks and not ours and our exports are up and the markets are showing our recovery we should be recovered fully in three years..nyway we got through the crisis by being united and we show respect to all despite whether they are rich or poor thats who we are as a nation our unity and patriotism gets us through the dark times and the strong and the vulnerable are all parts of our nation and we pull together THATS LOVING YOUR COUNTRY..RESPECT TO DECENT AMERICANS

• occassio | Aug 24, 2012, 10:53 AM EDT

  buffalobill73. President (then Deputy) Higgins knows enough about US politics and exceedingly more about the Palestinian issue (and the world) than does Michael Graham, he of limited mentality but loud mouth. He is, indeed a wanker. Michael D. called it as it was - and still is. (Then Deputy) Michael D. had the courage and fortitude to take on Graham about Palestine (“an international scandal”) and Gaza – and good for him. Too bad our politicians don’t have same courage and intellectual honesty.

• kinvara7 | Aug 24, 2012, 10:37 AM EDT

  @JamieLM and ancavker: You do realise you are on a website called 'Irish Central' and both of you frequently comment on Irish matters. I think Higgins left Graham off lightly.

• BrianO | Aug 24, 2012, 10:36 AM EDT

  @stevevirginia, social security is withheld from peoples wages and distributed by the government, I believe it is a pyramid scheme which is seeing its end, medicare also is paid out of your payroll taxes. Forced savings sounds nice but it is very poor way to invest, and government does a lousy job of managing other peoples money. As to the article. The Teaparty is a grassroots organization that wishes the founding documents, ie, the Constitution of the U.S. to be followed and upheld. The Constitution was Radical when signed and continues to be radical today, because it limits the power of government, something the current administration abhors.

• christilcaugh | Aug 24, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT

  I felt a bit of hope when I listened to him - thought the whole world was beginning to go "tea bagger," mad. I wonder where our presidential material like Ike and Truman (Both Republicans!) and Roosevelt are. They understood the need to care for the little people...as did LBJ.

• StevieVirginia | Aug 24, 2012, 09:48 AM EDT

  American Tea Baggers are the biggest threat to America today. President Higgins was spot on - on every remark he made. Anybody who wants to argue otherwise, is either drinking the kool aid or a fool ... 83 percent of the Tea Party are senoir citizens who live off of social security provided by the federal government. These same 83 percent want to stop federal hand outs of all kinds. Meaning they want their social security check which they use to survive to go away! They even want their free Medical Care to go away! Idiots! These people are fools who think everyone else is stupid when talking their ignorant talking points. Obama/Biden 2012 !!!

• jamieLM | Aug 24, 2012, 09:32 AM EDT

  @ancavker and buffalobill73 - AMEN. Pres. Higgins should concentrate on Ireland and its problems and let us Americans take care of our own business.

• jflanagan | Aug 24, 2012, 09:10 AM EDT

  He worked in a profession that rewards the elite and puts young people deep in debt! Of course he is going to love a central planner like President Obama. By the way, we are still in Afghanistan, got involved in Libya, are using unmanned drones to kill American citizens without a trial and are spending out grandchildren's money without representation. My Great Granddaughter, who is but 3 years old, is now over $50,000 in debt thanks to this wonderful kill the upper middle class President. Funny how Michael Graham's rebuttals, if this windbag ever shut up long enough for Michael to speak, were edited out of this "debate". He probably blew too many holes in this "on the dole" Irishman's arguments or, as we often see with those who have no real facts, the Deputy kept talking over him so Michael could not show how ignorant this Professor is.

• ancavker | Aug 24, 2012, 09:05 AM EDT

  Whether he is right or wrong, I find it ironic and typical of so many Irish in Ireland today, they can comment on the U.S. and how bad we are, but dare anyone comment on Ireland and they have a fit.

• buffalobill73 | Aug 24, 2012, 08:46 AM EDT

  President Higgins doesn't know as much about the US, it's policies and it's current state of affiars as he thinks he does. Seems to me those living in glass houses need not throw stones. In this case, the entre Irish economy and its government is 100% Waterford crystal. Shut your trap Higgins and focus on your own problems.

• eiriamach | Aug 24, 2012, 08:18 AM EDT

  "A wanker whipping up fear." Pres. Higgins got it right! Whipping up fear and following the leader are their only skills, really.

• weeknocky | Aug 24, 2012, 08:07 AM EDT

  He lived in the midwest as a professor. That explains his view.

• Conjoly | Aug 24, 2012, 07:39 AM EDT

  Good for you President Higgins!