IRELAND’S NINTH president had barely started his inauguration speech yesterday when pupils of Claddagh National School’s fourth class in Galway city erupted with helpful suggestions.
“Expand Ireland upwards!”
“Ban fast foods!”
“Bring the whole of Ireland together and turn it into Galway!”
Taking this new “presidency of ideas” seriously, Morgan O’Callaghan, Maciej Baltruszewicz and Blessing Ikpea were among a happy group of nine- and almost-10-year-olds who were watching the Dublin Castle ceremony on their whiteboard.
They had already spent the morning making posters to mark the occasion with teacher Seán Leonard and special needs assistant Anne Faulkner. Two weeks earlier, a vote in the classroom resulted in 90 per cent support for the local Labour man.
Soracha Hamilton from Roscahill was more thoughtful about his new role. Ireland should help poorer countries like Sudan, she suggested.
Rachel King O’Brien was sure he would “make Ireland better”, and Liam Scully felt Galway should now be declared the State capital. After all, Dublin was soaked in rain while the sun was out over the bay and the Burren.
A little less blown over by a bit of history were students in NUI Galway’s bar, who had been offered free tea and coffee during the RTÉ broadcast on a big screen. Mr Higgins, a former sociology lecturer and adjunct professor at its Irish Centre for Human Rights, had been given warm applause on the campus during his final day of campaigning last month, NUI Galway students’ union president Emmet Connolly noted, as fellow students chatted throughout most of the broadcast.
Connolly, who is busy preparing for next Wednesday’s pre-budget Union of Students of Ireland march in Dublin, nominated outgoing president Mary McAleese for an honorary degree the night before.
Such was the restriction on invitees that only a core group of Mr Higgins’s campaign team was invited to the inauguration, with several more Galway friends and supporters asked to last night’s State reception – including two members of the Saw Doctors group.
Breda Ryan, whose was present with her late husband and Galway mayor Paddy Ryan when he awarded US president John F Kennedy with the city’s freedom on June 29th, 1963, shed a tear as she watched on television at home. Older than Mr Higgins, she said she had “never voted Labour in her life” until she gave him her number one last month.
“Michael is a marvellous orator, but he was also himself,” Mrs Ryan said. “I think he will enthral them all abroad. He understands all the faults of humanity and he never sat on the fence.”
Mrs Ryan said she was particularly moved by the Galway Cois Cladaigh choir’s rendition of Beannacht, the poem written by the president’s late friend, philosopher John O’Donohue, which was set to music by Eamonn Murray.
“He spoke of the marginalised, of mental health, he gave great hope and inspiration to the older generation, to those Irish abroad, and he gave us a sense that we will get up and come through all this and be proud of ourselves again,” she said.
Up in the Occupy Galway protest camp in Eyre Square, supporters were chatting about global issues and the debt crisis.
“We’ve no television here, and no one was watching on smartphones,” one supporter explained, adding that they wished the new president well.
The largest congratulatory banner, however, was that erected at the top of the square by the owners of a well-known fast food chain.
“Congratulations President Michael D Higgins. We’re all proud of you”, it read, signed “Supermacs”.
