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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Why Micheal D.Higgins will stand apart as Irish president ---A perfect president for the important 1916 centenary

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Why Micheal D.Higgins will stand apart as Irish president ---A perfect president for the important 1916 centenary

Posted on Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 09:12 PM

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The ghosts of the men and women of 1916 will sleep easier this Halloween weekend knowing that Michael D. Higgins is the president who will preside over the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016.

The newly elected president of Ireland is a poet like Padraig Pearse and Joseph Plunkett two of the signatories of the famous proclamation, the founding document of the Irish state.

He is a leading Labor figure like a third, James Connolly and the fact that he attained power with a powerful assist from Sinn Fein would no doubt be of great interest to that parties founders.

He certainly has a track record in government that entitles him to stand apart.

When Minister for Arts and Culture he ended Section 31 the odious legislation that prevented Sinn Fein from being heard on the Irish airwaves during much of The Troubles.

He also established TG4, the All-Irish language television station that has been an outstanding success since it was established in 1996.

A fluent speaker of Gaelic he was the only candidate of the seven who ran who was able to converse in it.

In addition he reinvigorated the Irish Film Board leading to a glorious era when Irish film was constantly in the forefront of Oscar races and underwent a complete renaissance.

In person Higgins is an engaging character, able and willing to discuss in his very distinctive Clare accent, the matters of the day.

I don’t know him that well but have always found him a man with a deep sense of the Diaspora and the issues that confront the Irish abroad.

His election came after the Irish electorate at the last minute decided that steady hand rather than a new beginning was the better choice.

Sean Gallagher looked home and hosed. A former reality TV star and businessman he was as unalike Higgins as any two contenders could be.

But he was undermined by a dreadful gaffe on the last television debate when his very character came into question and he was not able to dispense with the barrage of late accusations about his ties to money men and the failed policies of Fianna Fail.

At the last second the voters switched to Higgins, the mercurial 70-year-old who was always going to be the safe pair of hands.

If his speech after he was elected is any barometer he will be that and more.

He is a passionate Irishman, an idealist and a proponent of the less well off in society, a man who came from a tough background himself who was literally farmed out to relatives at a young age because of his father’s alcoholism.

In this day and age Ireland needs a leader like that, a man with a common touch.

Here’s to his success.

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jacersagain | Oct 30, 2011, 08:35 PM EDT

re ciaran1433 post (Oct 30, 11.29AM) I offer a mute point, perhaps, re Irish language: I think he is is correct about Irish in Ireland today being one of the Goedelic languages – those spoken by Scots Gallic people, Manx people and the people in Ireland (as distinct from that spoken by earlier settlers in ancient Ireland, a kind of Britonnic language (er, that doesn’t mean British, but from Brittany (France) or Cornwall (South-west England)). Yet, both are forms of Celtic language. Latin didn’t arrive in Ireland until many centuries later. I’m no linguist but I do have an interest in what Irish I learned and erstwhile spoke fluently, and where it came from. The question I’d have for President-elect Higgins is – will it be P(residential) or Q(uirky) Gaelic language? The form of language used by most native-Irish speaking people today is Q-Gaelic, introduced by blow-ins called (no mis-typo here) Gaels. Don’t even bring in Latin language: the Romans in Ireland? ... heh heh, they came, they saw and didn’t bother. And that’s why we Irish are unique.

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jacersagain | Oct 30, 2011, 08:07 PM EDT

I think Niall’s article says nothing new... though it does show a few, pardon me saying, honest ignorant mistakes, as others have pointed out below. There has, so far, never been a bad President of the Republic of Ireland. That’s not surprising, since the Office has little power as understood in modern thinking and there has only been eight of them, or nine, if you include a self-proclaimed or a selectively-produced one (depending on how you see history) before Michael D. Higgins. He will not wish to be the country’s first bad President. I wish him well in delivering our Irish nation’s and its country’s expectations of him, especially during his tenancy of Áras an Uachtaráin during the commemorative decade ahead for the young Irish people living today. I think it’s going to be a great real-life education for them. Alas, most will be away on foreign soils during it.

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cindyohcindy | Oct 30, 2011, 07:30 PM EDT

why did you not post my Congratulations?

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CanadianPat | Oct 30, 2011, 06:07 PM EDT

Abhainn, you have missed the point entirely,pointing out the Gaelic/irish difference was petty and unlike your previous statement many in Ireland do on occasion refer to Irish as Gaelic as the proper word is 'Gaelge'!...Red Branch,Both Bobbie Sands and Pearse's poetry is quoted far more than MDH if not Yeats and or Heaney ,and refering to him as squinty because he had a bad eye is not only juvenile ,it is mean spirited and does not speek too well of your character!....Fergananim, Common myth that SDLP started the peace process,encouraged by the SDLP. It was Sinn Fein that approached the SDLP to act as intermediary that started the process!

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Kilsally | Oct 30, 2011, 05:55 PM EDT

Cillowen, it is a bit disingenuous to blame the totals for UK law which is rooted in the reformation, the monarch being head of state and head of the church of england cannot be anything other than anglican, roman catholic teaching insists children be brought up catholic and you cannot have a catholic as head if the church of england anymore them you can have a protestant as pope

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Fergananim | Oct 30, 2011, 05:24 PM EDT

Cillowen - The IRA did not start the peace process, the SDLP did. Unlike the IRA, the SDLP always rejected the use of violence, and the fact that all parties (except the IRA) signed the Good Friday Agreement demonstrates that political agreement, not physical coercian, is the only way forward supported by all sections of the Irish communities. And Guinness is'nt Anglo, its Irish, just like Arthur Guinness himself.

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RedBranch | Oct 30, 2011, 03:32 PM EDT

Michael D, Squinty Pearse and lets not forget the Right Honourable Robert Sands MP in our pantheon of poets. Difference is only one of the above did not adhere to mass carnage of their fellow countrymen. Poor comparison Niall. BTW is any of the above's poetry any good, you often hear people quoting Yeats or Heaney, but I can't remember the last time I saw any Pearse in common circulation?

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cillowen | Oct 30, 2011, 03:17 PM EDT

without the IRA few would know much about ireland - except it being one of UKers own. The peace that sprung from the IRA's courage is a peace constantly cited by nigh all politicians across the planet. The fighting Irish, at least its something more than being painted as drunks, drunk on that that Anglo elixir, Guinness. NI and UK apartheid is no more. RCs can now marry those beloved royals. Who knew, the power of standing up to tyranny?

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abhainn | Oct 30, 2011, 03:16 PM EDT

CanadianPat, scroll down to the comment by ciaran1433 who explains the Irish language situation clearly and at greater length than I have, situating Irish within the the Celtic family of languages more correctly than you did.

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abhainn | Oct 30, 2011, 03:12 PM EDT

CanadianPat, you have got your facts wrong, leading to an unedifying rant. The langauge is called Irish. It is so called in the Irish constitution; it was so called by my Irish teachers; it is so called by the Irish Department of Education; and it is so called by the people of Ireland themselves, who know the name of their own language. It is a pity your ignorance promoted such a rush of blood to the head.

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CanadianPat | Oct 30, 2011, 01:39 PM EDT

Adhainn, you pumpus,obnoxious,little fraud!The concept of free speech is lost on you, and as Eamon Dunphy can corroborate ,the Republic Of Ireland as well!...Irish (Gaelge) is one of several Languages which falls under the indo-european brance of Languages called colectively in English "Gaelic" which enclude Scotch Gaelic, Irish, Breton, Cornish ,Welsh,& Manx.therefor your correction is arrogant and witless!

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abhainn | Oct 30, 2011, 01:32 PM EDT

CanadianPat, you claim Ireland "has a bit more growing up to do before they are ready for a more forward looking President". It is universally acknowledged in Ireland, where we are closer to the action than distant Canadian observers, that we have enjoyed in the past 21 years the two finest and most forward-looking presidents we have ever had: Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese. These two presidents are greatly respected in Ireland and internationally, and President Higgins is also expected to make us proud. It is a pity our legislature is not staffed with such distinction.

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abhainn | Oct 30, 2011, 12:49 PM EDT

Niall O'Dowd, Michael D. Higgins is not "a fluent speaker of Gaelic". Higgins speaks Irish. Gaelic is what the Scots speak. In Ireland, our language is called Irish. Only foreigners like yourself call it Gaelic (I know you were born in Ireland but you left at a very early age).

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abhainn | Oct 30, 2011, 12:44 PM EDT

Section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act which kept Sinn Féin off the airwaves was not "odious", Niall O'Dowd. Quite the contrary: it kept odious terrorists' self-serving propaganda off the airwaves. The IRA were not freedom fighters, they were terrorists. The way to distinguish them is that the IRA regularly murdered and mutilated innocent civilians, violating the Geneva Convention. I expect American journalists not to give a safe house to terrorists, having been shocked into awareness by the Oklahoma Bombing and 9/11 experiences.

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CanadianPat | Oct 30, 2011, 11:50 AM EDT

He is a decent second best, and as the South has a bit more growing up to do before they are ready for a more forward looking President ;we will have to settle! He has a love of the language , culture and people ,is not a Partitionest, and as a younger man was a bit of a shaker and doer!He is more than a bit narcissistic and his poety and leaturing manner of speech can at times be hard to take. But when in form ,as he was at his speech after the election a very powerful orator .It came far to close with SG getting such a high vote dispite all his short commings and the truely best man comming a distant 3rd.Trust he may do well, or at lest not embarrass us as SG surely would have done.

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