Standing outside the brick cottages that line the Liberties’ John Dillon Street, Megan Wright reads a letter aloud.
“Thank you for your recent card to President Higgins regarding the passing of Síoda,” the Donegal artist says.
“The President has asked me to let you know that he and Sabina were very grateful for your really beautiful postcard.”
The 2020 letter from Arás an Uachtaráin concludes: “The President sends his best wishes to you and your family and hopes you all keep well during this time of national solidarity.”
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The postcard referenced is an original design by Wright, featuring Michael D Higgins and two of his beloved Bernese mountain dogs.
The design is among her brand’s (Design Wright) bestselling: Miggeldy and the Gang.
The image has been plastered on tote bags, postcards, stickers and earrings, a pair of which Wright was wearing.
“His dogs are just so iconic, as well as himself you know.”
Wright describes herself as being “really sad” at the death of Bernese Síoda that September.
“I think at this time [during Covid] we had all been online a lot, and everyone was collectively grieving Síoda.”
Wright was not the only individual saddened by Síoda’s passing, with her designs of Miggeldy and the gang quickly becoming best sellers.
There has been a recent revival of interest in them. “It’s coming to the end of his term, and I think we are all feeling a little bit nostalgic about it.”
What will Wright miss most about the President?
“I know for myself I really like that he’s an artist. That he’s a poet and he has a lot of time for the arts.
“I don’t think that he’s just this kind of cute, cuddly character. I think he speaks very well and he speaks his mind really well, which I admire. He’s a gentleman. I think we will all miss him when he’s gone.”
Someone else who will miss the President when Catherine Connolly takes office on Tuesday, is Fiona Stafford Byrne,secretary of the Bernese Mountain Dog Club Ireland.
Speaking on behalf of the club,Stafford Byrne says, “we’ll be sorry to see him go”, as two of the enormous dogs compete to hop up on to her lap.
“We presented him with a recognition medal a few months ago because he has been so instrumental in bringing interest to our breed.”
Puppy Misneach arrived at the Phoenix Park a few months after Síoda’s death. Bród died at the age of 11 in 2023, having arrived at Áras an Uachtaráin as an eight-week-old puppy. Higgins also had a Bernese called Shadow during his early years as President. The dogs helped welcome everyone from foreign heads of state to thousands of members of the public to the Áras during his term.
The medal was awarded to him at his final garden party last July by club member Valerie Hughes, “which he was delighted to receive, I might add”, says Stafford Byrne.
She believes part of the President’s popularity is due to his outward affection for his canine friends
“Irish people are great dog lovers,” she says.
Stafford Byrne says Higgins has increased the popularity of the breed “exponentially”.
“People would come along and say, ‘Oh, these are the President’s dogs!’”.
Sitting in her Co Laois kitchen, the flight attendant is surrounded by four of these presidential dogs in front of a cabinet creaking under the weight of rosettes won by her purebreds.
“Our club is so proud of him for having put these dogs out there on a worldwide stage, meeting dignitaries with him and showcasing their temperament and what wonderful dogs they are.”
Almost as soft and fluffy as Misneach is the Michael Tea Higgins tea cosy.
Susan Banks, the Tallaght woman behind it, was selling her crocheted creations at craft fairs in 2016 when she saw a Michael D Higgins tea cosy on Gogglebox.
She decided to give it a go.
They were an instant hit and “went like hot cakes” at craft fairs.
In January 2017 Banks’s nephew, who was visiting from Canada, put a picture of one of her Michael Tea Higgins creations on Reddit.
“I was up on Facebook as Susan Banks at the time, so the following morning my phone rang and someone said ‘I’d like to order one of your Michael D Tea cosies’.
“I put the phone down and the same thing happened again. And again and again so we had to take my house phone number off my Facebook account. From there on it just went wild.”
She says the response to Michael Tea Higgins has been “unbelievable”.
“They have gone everywhere, as far as Japan, Australia, Canada.”
To what does Banks, who sells the cosies under the name Not Just Hats, credit the popularity of the design?
“I think it’s because of the person he is, what he represents and how he represents the country so well. He’s just a lovely man. Why shouldn’t he be in your home?”
Although Higgins’s second term is coming to an end, Banks hopes to continue making Michael Teas. “I think he will still be popular. I hope to continue doing him, he’s the best.”
She says she would “love” the opportunity to present the ninth president of Ireland with one of her cosies.
Not Just Hats recently unveiled a new design on social media: “Honouring a new chapter – and a perfect cup – with president elect Catherine Connoll-tea.”
Whether Connolly’s cosy sells as well as her predecessor’s remains to be seen.
