Sometimes The Good Guys Win In The End

The first time that Michael D Higgins was mentioned as a potential future President was way back in the 1980s. He was a Senator at the time, a lecturer in what was then UCG, and a Hot Press columnist. so there was a leap of the imagination required but no one thought it impossible.

Hard to believe the twists and turns that life has taken in the meantime. Hard to believe how far from that ultimate goal Michael D must have felt at times. Hard to believe that it took over 25 years from when the idea was first expressed, for him to set out on a Presidential campaign in earnest.
Whether or not he’d have accepted the nomination so early, I don’t know, but Michael D might well have been the Labour candidate in 1990. Instead, the party leadership favoured Senator Mary Robinson and – though she had resigned from the Labour Party over its support for the Anglo Irish Agreement – she was selected to run. With a few weeks to go before polling day, Robinson was trailing badly in the polls. Then, the Fianna Fáil candidate Brian Lenihan’s campaign unravelled. There is no need to rehash the details here. Mary Robinson went on to be elected.
Perhaps, in the long run, the cards fell in the best possible way. Mary turned out to be a mightily impressive President, who effectively redefined the potential of the office and created a fresh, modern and enormously positive impression of Ireland abroad. And in January 1993, Michael D fulfilled a different ambition when he was appointed Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, a position he held through a change of Government until June of 1997.
As Minister, Michael D set about a detailed and ambitious programme of reform and development, and achieved a remarkable amount during his time as Minister. In particular, the decision to remove Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, which had banned members of Sinn Féin from the airwaves in the Republic of Ireland was a courageous and ultimately vital one. In doing so, he opened up a new cross-border dialogue, involving Sinn Féin. It was, thus, an absolutely critical stepping stone towards the peace process. It is not at all fanciful to suggest that, without that decision, the Belfast Agreement might never have been reached – and we might still be listening to daily reports of horrors on the streets of Northern Ireland.
Michael D also established Teilifís na Gaeilge (now TG4). He reinstated the Irish Film Board. He created tax incentives designed to make Ireland an attractive location for international film productions. And through these combined initiatives he in effect put the modern Irish film, broadcast and TV production industry on the map, creating thousands of jobs in the process.
He also embarked on an ambitious campaign to build theatres all over Ireland, accessing lottery funds to enable people to create a network of modern, purpose-built local theatres, arts centres and venues which stand now as a proud legacy of his time in Government.
It might have seemed like the perfect platform from which to contest a Presidential election, but in November 1997, when Mary Robinson stepped down, Labour instead ran with Adi Roche of the Children of Chernobyl charity. The campaign proved to be a disastrous one, with Roche’s early lead in the polls turning to dust following a series of relatively minor controversies. The Fianna Fáil candidate Mary McAleese was elected instead.
In 2004 Michael D had let the party know that he was prepared to run for the Presidency but the Labour Party decided to allow Mary McAleese to proceed into a second seven year term unopposed.
Against that background, it must have been difficult for Michael D to screw his courage to the sticking place and go for the Labour nomination in 2011, but he did, defeating Fergus Finlay comfortably in the vote.
Turning Dessie O’Malley’s ancient caricature on its head, he approached the battle in a presidential way, eschewing attacks on other candidates or anything else that might have dragged the tone of his campaign down. He intervened to ensure that David Norris got the necessary support from county councils to run. He welcomed all-comers into the race, including Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness. But he demonstrated at every turn that he understood the role of President far better than any of the other candidates.
He steered the ship steadily and went up in the polls with equal sureness. He looked to be on course for a tight win – until the final poll, that is, which threw the cat among the pidgeons.

The completely unexpected surge of the Dragon’s Den candidate Sean Gallagher, into the position of front-runner, coming into the last week of electioneering, was a gigantic curve-ball. That Gallagher’s surge was clearly a product of the opinion polls themselves must have been galling in the extreme. Efforts were redoubled, with Michael D himself covering every blade of grass on the presidential pitch.
Then came RTÉ’s Frontline finale. Challenged by Martin McGuinness on his Fianna Fáil fundraising activities and equally crucially, by Glenna Lynch, a private citizen, on his business dealings, with almost 900,000 people watching Gallagher stumbled.
On the Pat Kenny Show on RTÉ Radio One the following morning, the Dragon’s Den man made the mistake of dismissing Lynch’s questions as party politically motivated. Glenna Lynch was listening and phoned in to establish her independent credentials. Sean Gallagher’s stock took a hammering from which it would be impossible to recover. Suddenly Michael D was sprinting into the lead again and there was a feeling that the prize was there for the taking.

Within the first hour of counting, it was evident to the tallymen and women that there could be only one winner. Eventually, Michael D took almost 40% of the first preferences. And when the final count was done, for the first time ever, a Presidential candidate had topped a million votes. It is, by any standards, an astonishing achievement.
As news spread, there was an outpouring of goodwill that reflected the genuine affection in which Michael D is held by the vast majority of Irish people. All of the other candidates were generous in defeat, notably including Sean Gallagher and Martin McGuinness – and especially David Norris, who re-emerged into his own decent, good-natured, humorous self at the end of a contest that, for him had been deeply bruising. It was as if it had – somewhat belatedly – dawned on everyone that there was indeed one candidate in the field who was thoroughly qualified to take on the role of President – whose life experience and 40 years of public service had prepared him for this moment, and who was now as ready as anyone could ever be to step up to the plate.
Michael D Higgins is a former Hot Press columnist. He wrote for us for almost ten years. I have made no secret of my admiration for the man, supporting him strongly in Hot Press on the run-in to polling day. But others who were part of the Hot Press collective when he was on board as a writer share those feelings. So many of them called, e-mailed or texted me, emphasizing their support during the campaign and celebrating the result when it was announced.
And I am sure that hundreds of thousands of people who first encountered Michael D via those Hot Press columns are equally pleased. As one of the producers of Morning Ireland said to me, it isn’t often that a former columnist gets to become President of Ireland. To which one could only respond: indeed it is not.
His fine speech in Dublin Castle when the result was announced; an eloquent interview with Bryan Dobson on the RTE News; the extraordinary and wonderfully emotional scenes that greeted him on his return to Galway; the thousands upon thousands of expressions of support received from ordinary people – it became evident immediately that this was among the most popular Presidential victories ever, perhaps the most popular. As it should be.
One of the defeated candidates, David Norris, who gave the President-elect his second preference, put it simply and graciously. “Michael D will be a great President,” he said. Without a shadow of doubt he will.
What a long strange trip it’s been. So many things happened along the way just exactly as they happened, to get us precisely to where we are today. Amazing.
History might have shaped itself so differently and yet it feels like it was fated. It is many years since Michael D Higgins first indicated that he would like to run for the office of President of Ireland. There is no one better qualified. There is no one more deserving. And now he is.
Sometimes the good guys do win in the end.