Race for Irish Presidency - possible candidates begin to emerge

I have to hand it to you Americans: you’re very early starters.

About a year and a half to go before Obama attempts to get re-elected and already high-profile Republicans are queuing up to get on the good ship More Heat Than Light. We’re not nearly as organised here.

Which is strange, considering our race for the Presidency is a lot more open than the one you’ll be having next year. No incumbent, a range of quality candidates either in the ring or loitering with intent around the ring, but with a couple of months to go the race for the Presidency is still very much in the blocks.

General Election fatigue and bewilderment may have a hand in it (“Did Dick Roche really get such few votes?” a friend of mine is still moved to ask even now) though slowly but surely candidates are getting ready to charge.

David Norris was the first to do so, though he has also been the first embroiled in a scandal, such as it is. In an interview nearly a decade ago, Norris discussed the ancient Greek concept of pederasty, and claimed he might have rather enjoyed an older man mentoring him in the facts of life, as it were.

It of course being impossible to discuss an idea without going along with it, the article kicked up a bit of a fuss, though probably not enough to damage Norris too much. That said, if anyone is going to come out with a statement that becomes the talk of the campaign proper, it’ll be Norris.

Even though Norris is as it stands the hot favourite he still may not yet be allowed to run, as he needs the backing of at least 20 Oireachtas members or four county councils, a bemusing and unnecessary obstacle for independent candidates. But within the bigger parties the state of play is no less clear.

Labour will have to choose between Michael D Higgins, charity CEO Fergus Finlay and health campaigner Kathleen O’Meara, with former Minister Higgins the popular favourite to emerge. In Fine Gael, MEP and ex-TV presenter Mairead McGuinness is seeking nomination as is her colleague in Brussels, the tempestuous Gay Mitchell, but by far their most intriguing candidate is someone who isn’t even a member of the party.

Former European Parliament President and PD representative for Cork Pat Cox is now in the running for the nomination of the biggest party in the Oireachtas following the drop put of big hitters Sean Kelly and John Bruton. He may just win it and he’d be a formidable candidate if he did, but it’ll do nothing to refute his detractors’ impression of him as a vain opportunist.

Meanwhile the shattered remains of Fianna Fáil may not even run a candidate at all. Genial MEP Brian Crowley, who has long held ambitions of a Presidential run, stands the best hope of being an internal candidate who wouldn’t be annihilated, but as it stands the bandwagon is getting behind TV businessman Sean Gallagher, the type of dull bottom line hunter that seems to appeal to people but not to anyone I know.

As usual though, it’s the independents that make races like this. Norris aside Special Olympics head honcho Mary Davis will be a strong candidate and already has a bit of Presidential experience, having sat on Mary McAleese’s Council of State. And then there’s Niall O’Dowd, who I understand is a publisher of some sort.

His entry into the race, while probably leading to manys a Trump-esque column inch, would certainly alter the axes of the race beyond all recognition, as the diaspora is generally an issue where the only action ever committed is raising a glass in their memory.

Our candidates may not be as well-prepared as yours, but I know which one I’m looking forward to more.

President Obama and Ireland - a love story

PHOTOS:  President Obama's trip to Ireland - photo gallery

At the end of this week, we’re likely to feel a bit bereft.

After all, given the febrile flurry of the last fortnight where we’ve hosted the Queen, the President and, eh, Portuguese football fans, you’d be forgiven for wondering who was next. The Pope maybe? The ghost of Che Guevara? Shirley Bassey? Alas, no. No visitors next week. But even though Obama has left us, at least we have the man who nicked his lines in front of his face.

Throughout President Obama’s visit, Enda Kenny looked like a man who could scarcely believe he was doing all the things he was doing, like Scott Bakula at the start of an episode of Quantum Leap. Unfortunately for him, Kenny’s moment where he looks in the mirror and says “Oh boy” occurred in front of a massive crowd on College Green. No doubt conscious of the gravity of introducing President Obama to a podium, Kenny had some fine words to impart before handing over to his good friend Barry. Unfortunately they were almost identical to the words Obama himself used after beating John McCain in November 2008, with references to “America” crudely scribbled out and replaced with “Ireland”. Enda claims the whole thing was a deliberate homage, and as a man who once wrote a sketch performed in secondary school that was almost exclusively lifted/homaged from Frasier, I’m inclined to take him at his word.

With the exception of a comic interlude where Obama and Kenny were interviewed in leather chairs, and the President talked while Enda had a look on his face like he was pretending to understand medieval French, the Taoiseach had no other real part to play, as Obama ramped around the country wielding shovels, drinking Guinness and meeting the relatives. As if often the case with visits like this, what’s rendered is often secondary to the fact that rendering is being done at all, and in that respect the informality and clear enjoyment exhibited by the President and the First Lady on their trip will live long in the memory.

And as memories go Obama’s speech on College Green, with a crowd that looked as if it enveloped pretty much everything south of the Liffey stirred a considerable amount of nostalgia. The last time such a venture was attempted Bill Clinton achieved nigh on demi-God status for his emotional investment in the Irish peace process, that was fifteen years ago. That day he acknowledged that Irish people admitted “they weren’t there yet” when it came to the foundations of a lasting peace, but this week Obama paid tribute to the progress we’ve made since then. Small wonder the mood was so buoyant.

And if he didn’t do a good enough job of winning Ireland over with his love of porter and his high-flying well-done-you-rhetoric, the fact he got The Beast stuck on a grill sealed it. There’s nothing more Irish than driving down a road you shouldn’t.

PHOTOS:  President Obama's trip to Ireland - photo gallery

My favourite revolutionary Thomas “Ken” Whitaker

Loads has been written about the effect and purpose of the leaders of the Easter Rising and it’s not a topic I’ll be adding to in any great detail, but it has caused me to think a lot about the men involved, and whether the country they died for paid a blind bit of notice.

Patrick Pearse, for instance, would likely be horrified that the education system’s “Murder Machine” he railed against a hundred years ago is still basically in place. James Connolly would be similarly horrified that Ireland became such a seedily acquiescent place for ostentatious high-rollers and amoral profiteers. Easter Rising commemorations seem to boil down to histrionic admiration for people whose ideas - or methods - we’re happy to ignore. 

That the leaders of the Easter Rising should be so commemorated is not something that’s going to go out of vogue anytime soon, but there are other Irish revolutionaries deserving of as much if not more praise that we should think about now and then. One of them, my own personal favourite revolutionary, was only born in 1916. His name is TK Whitaker. 

A civil servant who bounded up the ranks with immense and unusual velocity, Thomas “Ken” Whitaker was appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance in 1956 before he turned 40. While there, he initiated the First Programme For Economic Expansion, a red-letter document that shook Ireland out of its protectionist torpor and opened the country up to the world. After leaving the Department of Finance he became Governor of the Central Bank and was a key figure in getting Ireland signed up to the European Common Market. In his later years he founded the Economic  And Social Research Institute, the ESRI, as well as serving as Chancellor of the National University, as a Senator and as Chairman of committees on issues like penal and constitutional reform. But he also had another string to his bow beyond the economic or academic: his expertise on the North.

It was Ken Whitaker along with his northern counterpart Jim Malley that masterminded the historic meeting between Sean Lemass and Terence O’Neill which was the first time opposite numbers from both sides of the border discussed issues of common interest, or indeed anything at all. As a senior advisor to Jack Lynch, he was a resolute voice of moderation when the pressure to respond militarily to civil rights atrocities in the North was beyond intense.  He also wrote papers on Northern Ireland’s constitutional position, with analysis on how the situation there came to be and how it could develop. We may not realise it, but over the last half decade or so Ireland has walked down a road almost single-handedly created by Ken Whitaker. 

Not only was he the first to see the potential of opening up Ireland’s economy, and engaging with Northern Ireland through proper diplomatic means, but he also devised plans to make them reality. Most revolutionaries are willing to die for a country that ought to be, but TK Whitaker dedicated his life for a country that was, and changed it emphatically for the better. And we should commemorate that at every turnabout.

Irish media personality, Ryan Tubridy set for BBC

It may not be up there with Glenn Beck somersaulting off Fox’s deep end, but Ireland has had its own media personality storm of late: our own Ryan Tubridy is moving to the BBC, albeit only for a few months. I don’t blame him.

The BBC is, after all, the best in the world at the very numerous things it does, and any broadcaster who wouldn’t want to work there has a serious salt deficiency.  It’s also very much a world station, so it’s not a case of joining the Beeb means he’s betraying his roots or something mad like that.

But I have to confess, it’s a perplexing move to me. Ryan, arguably the biggest presenter in Ireland, has taken on the role of National Flag Waving Morale Officer very much to heart of late, emphasising with metronomic consistency on both his radio and TV shows that the country needs good news, to accentuate the positive the country has to offer and realise what a great little country we are.

Therefore a move across the water, even if it is just for a couple of weeks, was quite surprising. That surprise, Choirmaster of Irish Happiness shtick aside, doesn’t stem from the fact that he’d want to work for the BBC, it stems from the fact that I had assumed his crossover moment had come and gone.

In 2002 when he took the reins of the 2FM breakfast show, Tubridy took Irish radio and gave it such a shaking that it didn’t know where it was anymore, which was just as well because the place it had been was terrible. He was smart, witty and exuberant, a self-styled young fogey and unabashed nerd. He was who he was, and he gained immense kudos and popularity for it. I loved him for that.

Better yet, it turned out he was a class act as a person too. Many’s a time I pestered him for interviews on my college radio station and many times he happily obliged. On one such occasion he called me up to apologise for the delay in getting back to me regarding a pre-recorded interview I’d asked him about doing, said he’d be happy to do it live instead and that he’d make time to be available for whenever it was we’d be going on air.

He did exactly that, acting as a freewheeling pundit on a college radio station that had as many volunteers as listeners, for a full hour. You could count on your thumbs the amount of people in a position like his so generous with his time.

It was around this time, as both the TV and radio strands of his career were in the ascendency but not yet at the peak, that I thought a crossover to the BBC was inevitable, doing the things he was doing in Ireland, and how he was doing them, but to a bigger audience. But he basically fulfilled his RTE Man Of Destiny prophecy instead, and conquered every square inch of Irish media real estate worth having. Between then and now, something has happened him.

Ryan, famously, is a fan of The West Wing, and in a lot of ways he suffers similar problems of late that used to plague President Jed Bartlet. He smoothes himself out. He lets the pitch go by. He runs straight to centre and would sacrifice controversy for keeping the show consistently on the road. He’s so concerned with being a responsible mainstream figure that he’s neglecting to do anything substantial with the responsibility. A perfect case in point recently was his interview with popstar Ronan Keating. Ryan went nowhere near the white elephant in the room, Keating’s affair with a dancer on his tour, and he was met with wall-to-wall derision for his soft soap. Celebrities are one thing, but a couple of months ago he was unforgivably lenient in an interview with former Minister and controversy magnet Willie O’Dea too, who he let prattle on about all sorts without taking him to task on his own preposterous escapades. Somebody needs to write “Let Tubridy Be Tubridy” on a sheet of paper and hand it to him.

I sincerely hope Ryan’s time at the BBC is really successful. More than that, I sincerely hope that it blasts him out of the funk he’s been in this last while and we start seeing  the Tubridy that so took us by storm in 2002.

It’s often said that a well-known person’s public and private persona are very different, and smiley people on camera can often be not so nice once it’s off. Tubridy couldn’t be further from such a description, and from what I know and what I’ve seen of off-camera Ryan he’s witty, irreverent and really good craic. I can only hope we see it more when the recording light goes on in future.

The Dalai Lama's visit to Ireland - the Irish see that what’s possible is anything we like

The fundamental problem with writing about an experience as profound as seeing and hearing the Dalai Lama speak is that the feeling it gives you is very hard to verbalise. Thankfully, the man himself has no such problem verbalising complicated concepts, and I came to realise that how he says what he says is as important as what he says. His is a wisdom that is more powerful stated than assumed, and it was wonderful to hear.

The reasons for the Dalai Lama being in Ireland and my being there to see him go back several months. The Possibilities Civic Forum was dreamed up a couple of months ago by three great Irish NGO’s: Children in Crossfire, Afri and SpunOut.ie, groups that do a host of inspiring work on social justice and well-being both at home and abroad. As a long-time member of the SpunOut family, there was no way I wasn’t attending. Their combined resolution to organise an event that could bring individuals and local groups together and energise them in their pursuit to change the way we do things in Ireland was, in every sense, a long time coming.

You could feel the 2,000 strong audience felt the same, as speaker after inspirational speaker was awarded rapturous standing ovations that came from their socks. Richard Moore, the founder of Children In Crossfire and the Dalai Lama’s hero, was a special highlight of the day. Blinded at the age of ten by a rubber bullet in his native Derry, Richard is a truly extraordinary example of forgiveness and compassion. Not only has he let blindness or bitterness consume him, but he’s dedicated his life to helping other children in conflict zones. He even sought out the soldier that shot him, and the two are now friends. It was hard not to well up listening to him speak.

Former President Mary Robinson’s reception was uproarious as she quoted, from a battered copy she carries round with her, article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his or her personality is possible.” Mary emphasised the wording and the truth it outlaid, that getting involved in one’s community is a vital part of a person’s sense of themselves.

The day wasn’t just about big-ticket speakers though. Theatre groups, gospel choirs, poets, traditional musicians and advocates for everything from mental health provision to combating racism through sport showed us in no uncertain terms just how much potential the country has and what, as the title of the forum encouraged us to consider, is possible if we resolve to do it.

One of the things the Dalai Lama focused on in his address was “inner qualities”, the instinct within us that encourages us to be subject to one another, to embrace compassion and reject animus. As he left the audience in Dublin, he showed his own inner quality. Going down the wrong steps off the stage accidentally on purpose, much to the dismay of his handlers, he went over to the row of people in wheelchairs at the edge of the central section of the room, and administered to every one of them, before doing similar on the other side of the room. It was a simple act, but to witness it was truly special. If seeing it encourages everyone in that room to engage in similarly simple but meaningful gestures, then we’ll see that what’s possible is anything we like.

Belfast City's peaceful protest murder of Northern Irish police officer - the past is another country

Read more: Second arrest in murdered police officer case in North

Belfast’s City Hall has seen its fair share of demonstrations over the years, but this Wednesday’s peace rally commemorating Constable Ronan Kerr was the first I had ever attended. And it was quite extraordinary.

Walking out of the Scottish Provident building and taking the short few steps out to the middle of Donegal Square where the rally was taking place, I was struck by how many people were walking with me, from all corners, walking silently and with purpose. When I joined the bigger group of people, I was the furthest away from the podium on my side of the street. When I looked back a few moments later there were legions behind me, and when I looked back again after a few moments more, the whole street was wedged. There was something incredibly powerful in the implicit unity of people, of all ages, of all occupations, who had never met or even broke breath to each other.

The demonstration itself consisted of two very concise statements from the trade union organisers, two bagpipe laments, and silence. Palpable, powerful silence. In a big city in the midst of a big crowd at lunchtime, you couldn’t even hear a mobile phone go off or people whispering to each other. City Hall has seen its fair share of demonstrations in the past, but never quite like this.

The past, so the aphorism goes, is another country, they do things differently there. Northern Ireland today is a markedly different country to the one it was when I, or indeed Ronan Kerr, was born. This Wednesday was a case in point: the murder of a police officer wasn’t met with equivocation, qualification or justification, just concentrated condemnation of the mindset and actions that prompted a young man being killed so senselessly.

The past is another country, and nobody wants to revisit it.

Read more: Second arrest in murdered police officer case in North

The fine line between grift and graft – Irish politicians get ‘stuff done’ - VIDEO

The recent debacle surrounding Michael Lowry has made him a poster boy of sorts for basically everything that is wrong with Ireland. Even though the man is basically six-odd feet worth of shenanigans, the people of North Tipperary keep voting him in like it’s going out of style. In fact, his vote has gone up steadily throughout the myriad damaging revelations of the McCracken and now Moriarty tribunals. The reason? He “gets stuff done”, whatever the hell that means. Such is the skewed mentality of some Irish voters: sure if the local TD gets the potholes fixed or sorted out the local school with an extension, what odds if that they fiddled their taxes, accepted bribes or subjected errant constituents to water boarding?

This line of thinking isn’t unique to North Tipperary of course. A whole host of constituencies have, in the past or present, elected people who made parochialism not just a virtue but an electoral cash cow. Sometimes merely feigning activity does the trick. The singling out by both the media and everyone outside a thirty minute radius of Thurles of Lowry as a bad example of how to do business is one prong of a wider call for much-needed reform on a national scale, but even if Lowry is censured by the Dáil and dipped in a tar pit, the type of politics he represents won’t go away. And a lot of people wouldn’t let it either.

Counter-intuitive it may be, but Lowry has made a lot of hay over the whole notion of the “Dublin witch-hunt”, and the sense of anti-establishment that endows. Local politicians of every stripe often take to showing themselves off as renegades taking on the jumped big city boys who just don’t get the spirit of the people of insert-county-here, and it inevitably goes down well because people feel the need to elect the local man who’ll have very few degrees of separation between them. Thus, the reasoning goes that if all the other towns in the area have such a councillor, so should you.

That’s fine with the council, but the problem is these fiefdoms are extrapolated for national elections. Unfortunate as it is, people are more inclined to vote defensively for reasons of geography rather than positively for someone whose ideas they find more compelling. It’s a hard habit to break, but the general election this year did strike a blow for candidates who are keen to rise above the parochial scene, though to go too much the other extreme would be harder still.

In response to the exhausted state of gombeen politics, there is a new school of thought that TD’s should deal with national issues first and foremost. That in itself is great, but in a TV debate recently such an advocate found herself rather awkwardly on the wrong side of an argument. When asked if a constituent came to her asking for help getting a hospital place for an ill parent, Labour TD Ciara Conway replied with a clinical answer about providing information that sounded as if it was what she thought she should say rather than what she actually thought. The reason why the likes of Lowry prosper is that he probably would have tried to cordon off a ward if someone asked him to, and people are more inclined to respond to the right thing for the wrong reasons than the wrong thing for the right reasons. Especially if it’s a burning issue they have.

Should TD’s focus on big national questions rather than man-marking their own patch? Unquestionably, but nor should they be too high-handed or precious to help a constituent in need with a problem. The key is balance: helping the local school secure an extension or keeping the local hospital open is noble work, but when representatives start making solo runs for credit on ensemble projects or, as Lowry himself did recently, send letters back home with students of the school he helped extend for their parents to remind them who’s good to them, that’s when things start getting deplorable. Politicians who work hard for their locale and by extension their country are as welcome as they are needed, but glorified concierges are certainly not.

Sketch from RTE comedy show "The Savage Eye" which sums up this mentality -