Let’s be honest: the presidential election has been farcical. We’ve had some very strange candidates including Michael Flatley and some weather presenter whom most of us had never even heard of. At this stage, I’m rather surprised Miss Ireland didn’t throw her hat into the ring too. Perhaps we could have had the Seoige sisters as a double act (“Make Galway great again”). With the failure of Maria Steen to be nominated, Irish conservatives – perhaps two fifths of the population – will have no one to vote for, but of course the Irish establishment likes the choice being confined to the three who made it.
The leading contender, and likely winner now with the whole Left and much of the media behind her, Catherine Connolly, has put Palestine at the heart of her campaign. Yes, that’s right, not Irish issues, no, but Palestine, a foreign entity 2,600 miles away.
Palestine of course in the last few years means Gaza. Whatever one’s opinion of that horrific conflict, it is utterly bizarre that it should be at the centre of an Irish presidential campaign. For one thing, the Irish presidency has no executive power to do anything. For another, Ireland itself has zero influence over Gaza and the broader issue of Palestine.
Hell, even the European Union can’t stop the war in Gaza. Even Donald Trump can’t, not least because he doesn’t want to annoy the Israel lobby ahead of Congressional elections next year (he knows if the Democrats take back Congress they will probably impeach him for a third time). Does anyone really think Benjamin Netanyahu will have sleepless nights if Catherine Connolly is elected?
Perhaps – shock horror! – an Irish presidential candidate should talk about Irish issues, such as the health crisis, the housing crisis, urban poverty, rural decay, and the looming demographic crisis which the consensus media doesn’t want to talk about: Ireland’s low birth rate and alarmingly high immigration rate. Of course, the president, whoever wins, will have no actual power to do anything about all this, but it would be nice to air these issues and have a national conversation about them outside the usual group-think in the Dail and the media. Perhaps, the presidential election should be a conversation more broadly about Irish national identity, an issue that concerns a growing number of Irish people, but with the failure of Steen to make the grade on Wednesday now that is not going to happen.
If Connolly wins, she will be even worse than Higgins. At least Higgins when he first ran in 2011 was pretty sober and straight. It was only in later years that he went off the reservation such as praising Fidel Castro and launching a one-man Celtic Jihad against Israel to the extent of embarrassing even the anti-Israel Irish government. Connolly, however, has already set out her stall, even claiming that Hamas is “part of the fabric of the Palestinian people”, whatever that means.
She has already articulated the MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) agenda, talking about Ireland having been “colonised” and of course, the famine. Ah yes, the famine. ‘Green’ nationalists and ‘anti-imperialist’ Lefties still like to talk about the famine as though it occurred in the eighties instead of nearly two centuries ago. Lots of countries have had famines since then folks; Russia and Ukraine had two in the early 1920s and early 1930s thanks to the joys of Communism and Marxist economics. Perhaps Ms Connolly is unaware that plenty of other countries have experienced colonisation, or that Ireland actually helped expand British colonisation (there were more Irish Catholics in the British army than Englishmen in the 1840s). Anyway, what does the famine or colonisation or Palestine have to do with the presidency?
It is high time we had a debate about just getting rid of the presidency altogether, though considering the apathy of the political class it is not likely to happen. Of course, if it did that would mean a massive shake-up of the Constitution, and perhaps a new constitution altogether which of course means a referendum, or rather an ‘Irish referendum’ where the entire political and media class is on one side of the argument and amazingly two-thirds of Irish people vote as they are told to, and if they vote the wrong way they will be asked to vote the right way when the referendum is replayed a year or two later.
In the past, the presidency had some purpose. True, it was a retirement home for Fianna Fail elder statesmen, but at least they had actually served their country and all of them strictly obeyed the job description. Even de Valera, despite his chequered past and very strong opinions, did not try and turn the presidency into a French or American-style office at the expense of the cabinet. Nor did he issue regular broadsides against foreign governments like our current Great Leader has a habit of doing. No, the presidency was there as a truly unifying element in the nation, the president being the guardian of the Constitution. That was his job; embody the Constitution. Like his Italian or German counterparts, the Irish president was rarely seen or heard.
Alas, the presidency has been subverted over the past generation, beginning with Mary Robinson who used the office to leverage herself into a nice job in the UN. Later she became Chair of something called “the Elders” which sounds like a sinister organisation in one of the hideous Star Wars prequels. Then there was Mary McAleese who wasn’t too bad in the office but as ex-president has used her prestige to launch a one-woman campaign against the Catholic Church and the Pope. The worst offender of course has been Higgins whose eccentricities not only drove the government to weep and pull its hair out but sometimes provoked an international outcry.
The presidency has become a foghorn for mediocrities and discontented leftists who failed to distinguish themselves in regular politics or indeed in any kind of Irish public service (yes, that includes Michael D’s poetry…..). Unfortunately, after the failure of Mary Steen to make the grade, that situation is likely to continue or even get worse. So we can look forward to another occupant of the office grandly talking about “equality” and “the joys of diversity” and moaning about the famine and imperialism, and Israel and Donald Trump, while living in a mansion and getting 350 grand a year. Nice if you can get.
Dr Derek O’Flynn