Michael D poised for victory in long presidential race for The Aras

Michael D Higgins

As I write this on Friday lunchtime, Irish time, it is looking likely that Michael D Higgins will be the ninth President of Ireland.

Although official counts will not be announced for a few hours yet, early tallies are suggesting Michael D surging ahead, with erstwhile poll favorite Sean Gallagher in a distant second and Martin McGuinness in third. According to a Red C telephone poll carried out on behalf of RTÉ, the last week of the campaign has been the difference between a two horse race and a near assured victory for Higgins, with over half of the 28% of people who switched their vote in the last few days drifting away from Gallagher. 

Given the scope and function of the Presidency, such campaigns always seem unusually hard-hitting and dramatic. In 1990 there was Brian Lenihan’s “mature recollection” and Pee Flynn’s outrageous comments about Mary Robinson’s new found interest in her family. In 1997 there was Adi Roche and allegations of bullying, and Mary McAleese being a tribal time bonb. And this year, perhaps because of the volume of candidates, the mud flew higher and faster. There was Norris and his letters, Davis and her state boards, Higgins and his age, McGuinness and his IRA past, Mitchell and his general disagreeability, Dana and her family feud, and the fact her husband and brother drove on a puncture.

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And then there was Sean Gallagher. As with Lenihan, it wasn’t so much the charges that were thrown at him so much as the way he reacted that precipitated a turn away in support. His responses to McGuinness’ accusations on The Frontline, accusations about Fianna Fail and fundraising he really should have prepared for, were all over the place. In the ensuing melee, he gifted phrases like “no recollection”, “envelope” and “bagman for Fianna Fáil”. His reaction to Frontline audience questioner Glenna Lynch, the objectivity of whom he tried to question, was disastrous. 

But at the end of the day, Gallagher’s connections to Fianna Fáil, or the apparently “money resting in my account” state of his finances, weren’t in and of themselves reasons to vote against him. The fact he was a stunningly uninspiring candidate who, to quote the template for Presidents everywhere, Jed Bartlet, “made being unengaged into a Zen-like thing” should have been enough. And yet, it took a coven full of Galway Races Tent incantations to finally put people off him. 

The Presidency isn’t the only vote going down today of course, with a by-election and two referenda also being counted. While Labour look good in Dublin West, the referenda are likely to go 1-1, with the Judges Pay referendum passing and the Oireachtas Inquiry referendum getting defeated quite decisively. In other words, today has been a complete cataclysm for Fine Gael. Failing to get a second TD in Dublin West is one thing, but failing to pass a key piece of legislative reform is a big dent for them. And Gay Mitchell potentially finishing this election on single figures is wading in to condiments poured on cuts territory.

There’s many hours to go before we know for sure and certain what’s going on, but at this stage there can be little doubt that Michael D Higgins is set to take up residence in Aras An Uachtarain. There’s less doubt still that he’ll do a terrific job when that declaration is made official.

Debating with the stars - candidates for president put to the test

Irish presidential candidates

We’re up to our eyes in Presidential al debates at the minute. First Sean O’Rourke took the magnificent seven into RTE’s far-from spacious radio studios for a ferocious grilling, followed by Ryan Tubridy’s parboil on the Late Late. But on Tuesday night, TV3’s Vincent Browne lobbed them all in a microwave and set it to high for 90 minutes. 

Vincent Browne’s interviewing style can easily be summed up in one phrase – “Why aren’t you crying yet?” – and therefore the debate, while compelling TV, generated more heat than light as it highlighted Vincent’s ability to be a relentless badass above pretty much everything else. 

So in view of the showmanship that has become a prerequisite of the campaign, and given the fact Dancing With The Stars is concurrently cutting a swathe/rug Stateside at the minute, I figured the only way to assess the Presidential candidates was Len Goodman-stylee:

Martin McGuinness

Vincent’s interrogation style was water off this duck’s back and he came across very composed, as Gay Mitchell’s insistence on throwing epithets at him just gave him a chance to look more Presidential. 

Vincent pulling out a range of books alleging he was in the IRA was a sensational stunt, but the thud of a library on his desk drowned out some pretty ground-breaking things said by McGuinness, including referencing the Somme and Ulster Solemn League and Covenant in relation to centenary commemoration. His insistence on telling us he only wants to be paid in tea and biscuits is getting a bit repetitive, but his steady performance combined with the hysterical bleating his candidacy is causing is making him a contender. Score: 8/10

Mary Davis

Even with the strutting in neon suits on her posters, there’s something oddly staid about Davis. Her attempts at positioning herself as Mary III aren’t working, and it’s hard to even recall any great zinger she came out with during the night beyond the usual gubbins about her board appointments. This was borne out on the TV3 website, the viewers of which deemed her to have placed joint dead last. On the face of it, someone with her experience and background should be a much more appealing candidate, but something is missing. Rating: 5/10

Michael D Higgins

Ireland’s own wizard poet took an economical approach to speaking during the debate, backing away from the contentious scraps and speaking in measured, statesmanlike tones. He probably demonstrated that he gets the role best of all the candidates, quoting articles of the constitution left, right and centre. The only one sticky issue was when Vincent attacked his role in government being at variance with being an independent thinker, particularly in relation to the tax amnesty of ’93. Michael D responded with rare straightforward honesty: he wasn’t proud of it but used the money to buy Collins Barracks military museum. Score: 9/10

Dana

Disaster. No matter what the topic, she brought it back to her central point: that the President is the only person that can stop the EU from plying the constitution with sweeties and bundling it into a van. More suited to running for Mayor of Wasilla than President of Ireland. Score: 1/10

Sean Gallagher

The country version of 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy has gone up in a lot of people’s estimation since the campaign, even coming second in a recent poll. He did however get a hammering about his Fianna Fáil past. He talked with clarity and confidence, but I can’t really remember what he was saying while being clear and confident. Score: 6/10

Gay Mitchell 

Somebody needs to have a word. There may be a parallel dimension in which Gay Mitchell constantly going after Martin McGuinness is working, but it’s not this one. He spoke well at points but ultimately comes off too tetchy and obsessed to make any real impression. Call off your goons, Gay! Score: 5/10

David Norris

His penchant for pressing the big red button strikes again. Most commentators compared his inability to answer the legal questions surrounding his letters to Israel to Brian Lenihan’s “mature Recollection” meltdown on the RTE news 21 years ago. The sad part is that when he spoke well he was excellent, on mental health issues and his fight to get homosexuality decriminalised for instance, but his cumulative performance did him no favours. Score: 6/10

What’s the point of a United Ireland? - Martin McGuinness' presidential campaign raises questions

Martin McGuinness

Last week’s column on Martin McGuinness has, to say the least, prompted a great deal of debate. While a lot of it was regarding the rights or wrongs of the circumstances of McGuinness and by extension Republicanism in general, some involved the nature and rationale of the conflict itself. But really, what possible reason could there be for a united Ireland?

There are certainly no logical reasons for such a move. In a lot of cases, it seems to me, the desire to unite Ireland comes from a deep-seated case of geographical obsessive compulsion: Ireland is an island, that stands alone on the north Atlantic, and having another country administering a small part of it is just plain messy. The anti-partition school of thought in favor of a United Ireland is related to this, in as much as they claim every political problem from social inequality to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa could be solved by scrubbing the border.

And then there’s the good old irredentists, the ones who maintain the Brits are occupying the six counties and that Ireland is for the Irish, whatever the hell that means. None of these have any real life application. I’ve lived on the border basically all my life and I don’t understand the fervency towards what is and has always been an infeasible pipe-dream.
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The reality is that green post boxes in Strabane will not make Strabane any happier or more prosperous a place to live in. It will not make the villages between Strabane and Derry that paint their curbs red, white and blue and brandish union flags and ensigns any more favorable to Ireland, or any less attached to Britain. It will not change the fact that whatever the nationality of the people who live in those villages, they can probably trace their family roots as far back on this island as anyone.

Besides, a lot of Donegal Catholics have Scottish planter lineage too who converted at some point along the way. They’re hardly more Irish because of that. Britain handing over the deeds to Northern Ireland would not have any positive transformative effect. Combining our forces will not create a land of milk and honey.

As the recent Life and Times survey bears out (see link above), this isn’t a niche opinion. Most people in Ireland, northern Catholics or otherwise, are much more concerned about tackling social and economic matters than eternally gazing through a national prism. Besides, Ireland has always been much more complex and interwoven than the irredentists like to imagine.

Taking Donegal as an example, we have much more tangible connection with Glasgow than we do with Cork, lovely a place as it is. It’s much easier and quicker to get to Glasgow from Letterkenny than it is to Cork too. People where I’m from who live in the Republic often do a lot of their shopping, socializing and even working across the border, the presence of which forms no impediment to traveling or interacting. In Padraig Pearse’s proclamation nearly one hundred years ago, he talked about freedom and liberty, about equal rights and opportunity, about pursuing happiness and prosperity.

As our access to the world and its different cultures becomes greater and greater, so long as we fight for those principles does it really matter what flags are flying overhead?

Martin McGuinness' run for presidency may insult some but we can't run from our past

Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness

I had to admit I was slightly surprised at first that Sinn Féin were seeking an internal candidate to contest the Presidency, on the basis that the touted names wouldn’t exactly be setting anyone’s world alight.

Mary Lou McDonald? As electable as diabetes. Michelle Gildernew? Barely known south of Aughnacloy. But then, they pulled the rabbit out of the hat: Martin McGuinness. I can’t imagine for the life of me why.

Of course, on a certain level it makes a lot of sense: a republican heavyweight recognised around the world attempts to become President bang on time for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising. But of course the flipside to that is the whirlpool of questions about his role in some of the darker corners of his and the country’s history the Presidential race has become.

McGuinness himself seems to have been genuinely surprised at the focus on his time in the IRA while he falls over himself to be statesmanlike and magnanimous, which demonstrates either surprising naiveté or a man so post-nationalist he’s genuinely forgot all about it.

While you have to wonder at the wisdom at the move, and how prepared all concerned were, his candidacy has unearthed the curious double standard at the heart of Irish politics.

First of all, to put my own cards on the table: I’m as much of a republican as James Connolly was a Progressive Democrat. I can’t think of an issue I care less about than the physical unity of Ireland: as long as I can talk freely to my friends in Belfast who grew up in different communities to me or roam into Derry whenever I want I don’t care if the place is governed by Ireland, Britain or Tuvalu.
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While the resurgence of the IRA didn’t happen in a vacuum in the late 60s and it’s easy to understand why people joined in those early days, I’ve never thought what they considered to be their war to be anything but counter-productive, misguided and ultimately malevolent. In many ways, I’m probably typical of the West Brit media types Martin McGuinness has been railing against in the last couple of days. But while I don’t have any intention to vote for him, and while I think he was mad to run in the first place, I have no inherent hostility to his candidacy either.

The whole point of the drive for peace and reconciliation is that it’s infinitely better for republicans who were violent in the past to be brought in from the cold, to categorically accept the mechanisms of a democratic state and reject and condemn their past sins and work towards a situation where that can never happen again, rather than be isolated for ever more. Taking everyone who had a damaging role during The Troubles and winging them into a far-flung cave might make certain people feel better, but it solves no problem.

It’s only right that McGuinness is rigorously taken to task over his past now he’s resolved to try and become head of state, and he really should do some manning up and react to these concerns in a less tetchy, victimised manner, but there seems to be a case of historical statute of limitations among some of his critics. Eamon de Valera became Commander in Chief of the defence forces less than forty years after prompting a civil war and promising to wade through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish government.

Sean Lemass, generally feted as one of the best Taoisigh the country has ever had, famously referred to Fianna Fáil as a slightly constitutional party at the start of his career. Some FF TD’s had guns in their pockets on their first day in the Dáil. Michael Collins, father figure of Fine Gael and heralded on television by one Michael McDowell as Ireland’s greatest ever figure, hardly lived a bloodless life either. And even excluding all that, in five years time there will be massive nationwide celebrations of the anniversary of a small minority of the Irish Volunteer Force unilaterally declaring insurrection while a programme for Irish self-determination was agreed upon and ready to be enforced by elected Irish officials. To the best of my knowledge, the men and women of the Rising didn’t fight the Brits by lobbing water balloons at them.

The sad fact of Irish history is that it is drenched in blood, and that has left a legacy we all struggle with, but we have to deal with that legacy in its entirety: if we deplore the use of the gun in 1972, we can’t intellectually detach ourselves from the fact the use of the gun was deplorable in 1922 as well.

Whether McGuinness’ run for the Presidency was a naive political miscalculation, a case of ego clouding better judgement, or even a deliberately high risk strategy to wipe Fianna Fáil’s eye, the announcement has opened up an uneasy and ill-tempered argument. While disappointing, if for no other reason than so much time is being spent discussing the last 40 years of a man who isn’t going to win anyway rather than focusing on what the candidates can do in the next seven, if the debate makes us think more widely about the leaders of our bullet-riddled past and acts as an ultimate last stand for sympathy of any kind for those sort of politics, perhaps it will be worth it.