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Michael D. Higgins will be rocking in the Áras and The Saw Doctors will be getting a Christmas card with a very nice white painted house on the front.
This after Michael D. Higgins, with the band’s eponymous song ringing in his ears, raced through the seven-strong candidate field to emerge as the clear winner in the Irish presidential election last week.
By the fourth count, Higgins had amassed over a million votes when first preferences and transfers were combined. This was well ahead of the second place contender, the independent candidate Sean Gallagher.
The final result was the first time that a presidential candidate had amassed a seven-figure vote count. Higgins had initially garnered 701,101 first preference votes, or 39.6 percent, while Gallagher, who had lost support in the final days of a tumultuous campaign after his status as an independent became more clouded, received 504,964 first preferences, or 28.5 percent.
Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness ran third with 243,030 first preferences or 13.7 percent. He was followed by Gay Mitchell of Fine Gael with 113,321 first preferences, independent David Norris with 109,469, independent Dana Rosemary Scallon who secured 51,220 first preferences and independent Mary Davis who had amassed 48,657 votes.
Higgins, a veteran Labour Party politician, academic and poet, will succeed outgoing president Mary McAleese and will be sworn into office as Uachtarán na hÉireann on Friday, November 11.
Already, Higgins, who is 70, has delivered a taste of what his presidency will be like in an acceptance speech that, according to reports, drew tears from many listeners.
Excoriating the values of the Celtic Tiger, Higgins declared: “We leave behind a narrow individualism that valued the person for what was assumed to be their accumulated wealth, but neglected the connection between the person, the social, the community and the nation. That is what we leave behind now, for which a million people have given me a mandate,” Higgins said.
He also struck a conciliatory note.
“I recognize the righteous anger, but I also saw (during the campaign) the need for healing and to move past recrimination,” he told his audience, which had assembled in the main count center in Dublin Castle.
Meanwhile, the very early days of Michael D. Higgins were being recalled this week by childhood friend Dennis Meehan, who lives in Cairo in New York’s Catskill Mountains.
“We would walk to school together. He was the nicest guy you could ever meet and very smart. We have stayed in touch down the years,” Meehan told the Echo.
The two attended the one-room Ballycar National School in Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare.
“Many of the farms on our three mile walk to school had apples, turnips, carrots and sugar beet that we helped ourselves to on days we were extra hungry,” said Meehan.
“But Michael was always the good boy keeping us in line,” he added.
“All of my family, and all of those who attended Ballycar, are extremely delighted with Michael D’s success,” Meehan said.
