President will bring 'nobility of spirit' to office

TAOISEACH'S SPEECH:THE AUTHENTICITY of President Michael D Higgins will resonate across Ireland and the world, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said. Speaking during the inauguration ceremony at Dublin Castle, Mr Kenny said Mr Higgins would bring a "nobility" of the heart, mind and spirit to the office and to all his endeavours in the name of Ireland and the Irish public.

“His authenticity as a poet, philosopher, patriot and politician; as a democrat, republican, husband and father, will resonate across this country and around the world,” he said.

Mr Kenny said that Mr Higgins had been given a “powerful mandate” by more than one million people and that, by his own declaration, he would be a President of “healing and transformation”.

“And if it’s true what they say that a wound heals from the margins in, then our new President will be a powerful healer,” he said, “because he has fought for the marginalised, supported the marginalised and been the voice of the marginalised throughout his public life. And today he is the centre. He is our President.”

He said that with the “warm good wishes” of 70 million members of the Irish diaspora around the world, Mr Higgins would be a “President for all the people”. Mr Kenny said that, in taking the office, Mr Higgins held the hearts, hopes and dreams of the nation.

“Indeed, a particular dream that saw our people reject a particular idea of wealth – the famished castle with its cardboard crenulations – to embrace instead the idea, the possibility of comhluadar [community], a republic and its people defined not by greed or power or wealth but by the quieter, deeper, more authentic elements of respect, virtue, of love and duty to our country and to each other as together we take on the difficult task of national recovery and national renewal.”

Mr Kenny said Ireland would mark the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, the Easter Rising and the first World War during Mr Higgins’s tenure. He believed Mr Higgins was “eminently suited to oversee the commemoration of these events and their legacy”.

The Taoiseach paid tribute to Mary McAleese for her “outstanding and extraordinary contribution” to Irish life during her 14 years as president. Mrs McAleese brought “warmth, dignity and grace to that office and to the people”, he said. “I know she will join with me in wishing the ninth President of Ireland the best as he, in his way, further deepens the appreciation of the uachtarántacht ,” he added.