'Well it's easy to vote, isn't it?' - one reason for making it six in a row

KITTY O’NEILL, in her 99th year, yesterday voted in her sixth presidential election, having voted in every contested election for the office since the foundation of the State.

On six occasions the office of president was filled without an election as only one candidate was nominated.

“The first time I voted in an election for president was in 1945. I voted of course for Seán T O’Ceallaigh. In the next one I would have voted for Dev [Éamon de Valera]. Oh I wasn’t a Fianna Fáil person. I just voted for the best of them, whoever was competent,” said Mrs O’Neill, sitting in the living room of her home in Monkstown, Co Dublin.

Asked how she thought election campaigns had changed over the years, she said they were “much more covered now by the media”.

“I think people want them more covered and they are. I am interested in politics and I feel a president should be the best they can be, do the best they can do, and the person who is most able should be the one who wins.”

Asked her views on the candidates for the 2011 election, she said: “Well [Michael D] Higgins is my man. I think he knows what he is about and he is about good things. He supports the arts and he is an Irish speaker, which I think the president should be.”

She added: “I don’t think he is too old at all. To me he seems perfectly young.”

Mrs O’Neiil voted for Mary Robinson in 1990 and Mary McAleese in 1997. “The women have been wonderful.”

Always interested in politics and the arts, Mrs O'Neill and her late husband, Tim, were great friends with the artists and writers of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, including Bertie Smyllie, editor of The Irish Timesfrom 1934 to 1954, and Brian O'Nolan, aka Myles na gCopaleen.

Mrs O’Neill has also voted in every general and local election since 1931.

“Well it’s easy to vote, isn’t it?” she said. “And it’s important, and was hard-won.”