A homecoming fit for the peopleÕs President

Date Published: {J}

By Dearbhla Geraghty

It evoked an era long gone, when hundreds of party faithful would turn out to welcome back a newly-appointed Government minister – but the triumphant return of Michael D Higgins to his home city crossed all political lines and generations.

Indeed, the man who will always be known affectionately as ‘Michael D’, is probably the only politician known instantly by his first name, and this very affection and familiarity will herald a new era for the Irish Presidency – who would ever have dared refer to Mary McAleese as ‘Mary P’, or Mary Robinson as ‘Mary T’?

Thousands of men, women, and children had lined the crowd barriers and climbed the trees at the lower end of Eyre Square from mid-afternoon on Sunday and, despite the 90-minute delay and occasional rain, they waited patiently – some more comfortably than others.

Eventually, led by a Garda escort and the Patrician Brass Band, the black Mercedes pulled up and the ninth president-elect emerged with his wife, Sabina, to deafening cheers.

They were engulfed by photographers and TV crews, before Michael D made his way through the crowd to the podium on the steps of the Meyrick Hotel.

Galway had not seen anything like it since the Galway footballers returned with the Sam Maguire in 2001, but this victory was somewhat different, and on a wider scale, because the Limerick-born (and Clare-raised) President-elect had been the choice of over one million voters nationwide.

Young Labour party TD, Derek Nolan, described the win as completing a “political triangulation” for Galway and the West – with the president’s home in Galway; Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, originally from Caltra; and the Taoiseach from Mayo.

The Labour Party leader, a long time friend of Michael D, spoke in both Irish and English.

“People of Galway, you showed how proud you were of Michael D on Thursday when you gave him the highest vote in the country,” he said.

“You show how proud you are of Michael D and Sabina with your presence here this evening.”

As the president-elect made his way to the podium someone from the crowd shouted “speech”.

“I’m thrilled to be back to the place I came to in 1960, as a young person, it is where I was welcomed, where my family is, and my heart will be forever,” he said in Irish, to huge cheers.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.