DOES the role of President of Ireland matter? As with much in politics, the answer is No. And Yes.
It’s No because the role of President is largely symbolic. He or she is a figurehead, representing Ireland internationally. The ruling Taoiseach and his/her Cabinet make political decisions, the President merely signs them into law. And the President is supposed to represent all Irish people, not just a portion of them.
It's Yes because symbols matter. When the President appears abroad or at significant events at home, s/he is identified as Ireland embodied, and the extent to which they can embody the best of us is truly important.
Sometimes the lines of non-political involvement get blurred. When President Mary Robinson visited West Belfast in 1996 and shook hands with Gerry Adams, it was seen as opening the door to an Agreement. When President Mary McAleese invited Orangemen into Áras an Uachtaráin on the Twelfth and her husband Martin played golf with loyalist paramilitary Jackie McDonald, it was interpreted as the Irish people reaching out to unionism. (No, Virginia, I’m sad to report it didn’t work).
All things considered, the person who occupies the Irish Presidency does or certainly can matter. There was a time when the Áras was seen as a gilded rest-home, a 92-room reward for politicians who had borne the heat of the day. That ended with the election of Mary Robinson in 1990. Michael D Higgins may have provoked a blizzard of Letters to the Editor, lamenting that he should speak about the barbarity of Israel towards Palestinians, but many, probably the majority of Irish people, would have approved of his intervention. Attempts at genocide eclipse Presidential convention.
This November, for the first time in fourteen years (Michael D said he would serve just seven years, then changed his mind and did fourteen), the people of the South will elect a new President of Ireland. The only one so far to declare his eagerness to become a candid is the ineffable Conor McGregor, who doesn’t seem to know that any candidate for President must have the backing of at least 20 members of the Oireachtas – TDs and/or Senators – or the backing of four local councils. Since I’m optimistic that most Oireachtas and local council people have at least one brain cell inside their head, McGregor’s Mission will, I trust, collapse at the first hurdle.
Who then would make a good Presidential candidate?
Well, people mentioned so far are Senator Michael McDowell, journalist Fintan O’Toole, former GAA President and Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly, EU bigwig Mairead McGuinness, RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan and former Fine Gael Cabinet minister Heather Humphries. All of them are streets ahead of Conor McGregor, but that’s setting the bar so low you’d have to dig deep to find it.
Miriam O’Callaghan in my book is a non-starter, since on live RTÉ television she asked then-Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness when he last went to confession. Michael McDowell is a barrister, a senator and a failed politician. His red-faced opposition to all things republican is a big handicap. Seán Kelly is where he is because of his championing of the GAA, but Ireland has seen enough sporting stars without starting to install them in Áras an Uaichtaran. Fintan O’Toole is an accomplished journalist but like McDowell carrries a fixation against all things republican. Heather Humphries, championed by Stephen Collins in the Irish Times, is pleasant but undistinguished, and has the charisma of a stale loaf.
The left-wing parties in the Dail, including Sinn Féin, are casting around for an agreed candidate. Michelle O’Neill and John Finucane have been mentioned. Both would be invaluable in their commitment to the planning needed for the most significant Irish event in the past hundred years: the holding of a border poll.
