There wasn’t a hint of past enmities when the President and the president-elect met in the Áras for the first time, where they posed briefly for pictures before a private lunch on Wednesday afternoon.
Michael D Higgins, accompanied by his wife Sabina, shared a warm embrace with Catherine Connolly, accompanied by her husband Brian McEnery, ahead of her inauguration as the 10th president of Ireland on November 11th.
While they have had a famously frosty relationship after falling out in the Galway West constituency over the Labour Party’s refusal to let her stand as Mr Higgins’s running mate in the 2007 general election, they were full of broad smiles in the State Reception Room.
Ms Connolly left the Labour Party as a result and ran unsuccessfully as an independent in that election. It was, however, just the starting point for her political ambitions on the national stage, which culminated in last month’s presidential election when she secured more than 63 per cent of the total vote and was elected on the first count.
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Shortly after 12.30pm Ms Connolly walked with purpose towards the appointed greeting spot. However, she quickly realised that in spite of some very careful choreography leading up to the photo-op, she was seconds ahead of schedule and had to pause briefly to allow Mr Higgins enter the room first.
When they were both in position in front of the phalanx of photographers, Mr Higgins, looking the picture of health despite his recent hospitalisation, handed his two walking sticks to an aide.
Ms Connolly joked about holding hands with Mr Higgins and raising them aloft, but there was no such breach of decorum.
They settled instead for a warm handshake and broad smiles for the cameras, after which the President hailed the importance of the media – a possibly gentle reference to his soon-to-be successor’s sometimes tense relationship with the press.
Over the course of the campaign Ms Connolly faced accusations that she avoided media interviews with traditional news outlets and favoured less rigorous interviews on podcasts presented by people broadly supportive of her campaign.
The media was “very important”, Mr Higgins said as he thanked those in attendance. If Ms Connolly sensed it as a slight, or even a slight dig, she gave nothing away, and the smiles continued for a few moments before they headed into an ante room and their lunch.
They were then scheduled to have a private meeting in Mr Higgins’s study.
All told, the public part of the most peaceful transition of power lasted just under two minutes.
Neither Mr Higgins nor Ms Connolly made any public remarks, although the president did tell her that what she had done was “a great achievement” and he wished her “health and happiness” as her term in office looms.
Mr Higgins and Sabina are due to vacate the Áras after their 14-year stay on the day before the inauguration, after which they will return to their home in Galway, not far from Ms Connolly’s home place in Shantalla.
Once inaugurated she will ready herself to move with members of her family into the official residence of the president in the Phoenix Park.
