A New York thanks to President Michael D. Higgins

*Editor's Note: The following piece was submitted to IrishCentral by Brendan Fay, the Co Louth-born, New York-based filmmaker and founder of the Lavender and Green Alliance and St Pats For All.

After 14 years, November 10 marked Michael D. Higgins' final full day as Uachtarán na hÉireann, President of Ireland. A few days prior, with his wife Sabina, he warmly welcomed president-elect Catherine Connolly to Áras an Uachtaráin.

For days, there has been an outpouring of warm farewells and expressions of gratefulness from every corner of Ireland, as well as from the Irish diaspora around the world.

People have told stories of the President’s courage, compassion, warmth, heartfelt hospitality, and his instinctive sense of justice and human rights.

For 14 years, he has been a people's President, a poet's President, a worker's President. Artists and activists found friendship and voice with him.

President Higgins has been a consistent carer of the Earth and an outspoken voice on climate change and the threat of nuclear weapons to a future of hope for children and grandchildren.

He celebrated the joyful companionship of Misneach the madra and all animals.

For us in New York, Michael D. Higgins was a President for the diaspora, the global Irish immigrant communities. We at the Irish LGBTQ group Lavender and Green Alliance - Muintir Aerach na hÉireann felt a closeness and his affirming solidarity as he supported our long campaign for inclusion in the St Patrick’s Day Parade on New York City's Fifth Avenue.

After I began St. Pat's For All in 1999, he wrote messages of support for many years. Indeed, it was a rare privilege to meet with him a couple of times.

In 2016, I received an invitation to be honored along with Kathleen Walsh D'Arcy and others during the Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for the Irish Abroad.

This was a huge moment as Tom and I, a married gay couple, and I, a returning immigrant, journeyed back to Ireland to be among the recipients presented with the award by President Higgins on December 8, 2016.

My sisters Carmel, Mary, and Joan traveled from Drogheda, and Brian Fleming from Clare. I was gobsmacked crossing the Áras threshold, reflecting on the long and winding road from Scarlet Street in Drogheda to the Phoenix Park, via New York, and the road from exile to equality for our Irish LGBTQ diaspora.

The award was all the more meaningful as President Higgins has been a political leader in the profound transformation of Ireland - to our becoming the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote in 2015, and a few weeks later, signing the Gender Recognition Bill into law.

Ireland extending equal rights and protections for the transgender community. Ireland undoing the constraints of an exclusion culture many lived and suffered in for decades.

Brendan Fay (L) and President of Ireland Michael D Higgins. (Courtesy Brendan Fay)

We met again in August 2018 when he and Sabina opened the Fleadh Cheoil in Drogheda. He celebrated our language, dance, music – our céilí culture and artistic expression. I can see him walking around the town chatting with locals and cheering performing trad musicians and dancers from around the world.

Visiting Argentina in August 2013 for a screening of my film "Taking a Chance on God," on gay pioneer priest John McNeill, I sat in a Buenos Aires hall with human rights leaders recalling the President’s visit a few months before in October 2012. We spoke of his remembering the courageous Irish Argentinian writer Rodolfo Jorge Walsh (1927 – 1977) and his honoring the memory of Patrick Rice (1945 – 2010), the human rights advocate who was tortured during the military dictatorship. After surviving, Rice spent his life as a global advocate for torture victims.

Here and across the world, President Higgins inspired many as he raised his voice for the People of Gaza and Palestine, calling for a ceasefire and an end to torture, killing, and genocide.

Many times through the years, whether advocating for LGBTQ equality or nuclear disarmament, I turn to the passionate words and reflective witness of President Michael D Higgins.

Recently speaking along with fellow activist and organizer Jesús Lebrón with students at Westchester Community College for LGBTQ history, I closed with words of the Irish President. “We are all but migrants in time and space – transient travelers who must do our best to pass on to the next generations, a hospitable ground, on which they can flourish – Let us try to do it together.”

Thank you, President Michael D. Higgins. Míle Buíochas!