I spent some time this week at the MacGill Summer School, or what Miriam Lord calls Ireland’s Glastonbury for political anoraks, in Glenties, Co Donegal. The discussions spanned a wide range of themes, from the country’s chronic infrastructure deficit and its increasingly vulnerable business model to the future of the Constitution and the prospect of Irish unification.
But I was struck by how often, on the margins of the event itself, conversations turned to Irish politicos’ current favourite parlour game: figuring out who might be the next president of Ireland. In this, the Glenties Glastonbury crowd are ahead of the population at large. The latest Irish Times/ Ipsos B&A opinion poll this week finds that people have yet to tune into the race, such as it is, with ‘Not sure’ (20 per cent) and ‘None of the names so far appeal to me’ (18 per cent) coming out on top when respondents were asked how they would vote.
Two candidates emerged this week: Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness and the Galway TD Catherine Connolly, who already has the support of the smaller left-wing parties. You can read our profiles of McGuinness and Connolly. But Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Labour have yet to decide whether to run candidates of their own, and there is always the possibility of a viable independent emerging out of nowhere. Expect at least another few weeks of reports informing you that some television celebrity you’ve never heard of hasn’t ruled himself out.
The pre-campaign vaudeville shouldn’t obscure two important points. First, a lot of strong potential candidates, it’s very clear, do not want to run. There are no doubt many reasons for that slender list of serious candidates. Some have the self-awareness to know they would not win. Others have been told, or have worked out for themselves, that they would not even be nominated. Some prefer power, or the possibility of it some time in the future, to the softer, largely ceremonial influence of the Áras. The high financial cost of a campaign is a factor. And we can safely assume that the bruising, even brutal, nature of recent presidential campaigns is deterring some prospective nominees from putting their names forward. Whatever the reasons, we already know that some of the best candidates will not appear on the ballot paper.
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Second, the presidency does matter. To say the role is largely symbolic is not to imply it is unimportant. It is vested with significant constitutional functions; exercising them requires good judgment and strong political instincts (it is not often observed that the last three presidents have been, above all, highly skilled political operators). It is in many ways a harder office to fill that most other public roles because its holder must have both the ego to seek it and the humility to use it well; must have the ability to understand politics and simultaneously rise above it; and must show a deep understanding of the Irish experience along with the ability to articulate a national vision that transcends day-to-day concerns. Finding that person won’t be straightforward.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Editor
Five Key Reads
- Hugh Linehan writes about his experience of macular degeneration – and the losses, large and small, that come with it. He says: “My hopelessly shortsighted left eye is amblyopic, or what people used to call lazy, to the point of uselessness. But now my right eye is failing too.”
- This weekend Mark O’Connell looks at the case of DJ Carey, which he says “belongs to a strange and depressing category”. Mark writes: “To be from Kilkenny was to be proud – automatically, almost congenitally proud – of its supremacy in the sport of hurling. And at the very centre of that was DJ.”
- Behind the “perfect family”: Mary Carolan writes about how “great fear” stopped three Dublin sisters from revealing years of abuse by their brothers.
- David McWilliams writes that when it comes to housing the problem in Ireland is that supply has fallen way below demand for many years, particularly in the past decade. This is what he thinks the Government need to do if we want stable, affordable house prices.
- Corinna Hardgrave takes a look inside Ireland’s bakeries – from the traditional ovens to the new wave of micro bakeries fermenting dough, farming heritage grain and charging what it really costs.
As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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