Never stay too long in the studio. It’s like staying too long in the sun. You get burnt.
I learned this the hard way when asked to come on an RTÉ radio programme in 2004, when former president Mary McAleese was appointed unopposed to a second term in the Áras. Having said how she had grown into the role, how good she had been as president, I had said my piece. But the next interviewee hadn’t turned up, so I was asked to stay on. Big mistake.
Asked if there was nothing about the McAleese presidency that I disliked, I said what I should have kept to myself: that I wished, in an increasingly secular state, that she wouldn’t bring God into the conversation all the time; that she sometimes sounded like an old nun with phrases like “God willing” or “if God spares me”.
On my way out, the producer said excitedly, “the switchboard is jammers”. Producers always love it when the switchboard is jammers.
Anyway, the Irish public had rang through in their hundreds to defend the president’s right to bring God into the conversation if she wanted to. I knew it was a mean thing to have said, and president McAleese, a decent woman, never held it against me.
It was a sharp lesson in how protective Irish people are of their presidents and how careful anyone should be about criticising them. After all, there is only one constituency in a presidential election, so presidents are elected on a national vote or are appointed by political consensus.
From the days when Erskine Childers established the practice of an active presidency, we develop a link with them, even when we haven’t initially voted for them. We often like them better than we do most politicians, and there are reasons why.
In an office that is largely symbolic, they don’t have to make decisions about taxes or spending which will turn us against them.
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Presidents come to celebrate with us when we open something new or do something well. They commiserate with us on behalf of the state at times of tragedy or disaster. They express our horror at injustice, famine, and war. And they are in office longer than most politicians. So, like the Michael D Higgins tea cosy that warms so many of our teapots, we become very attached to them.
Most taoisigh and governments know this, so they tread warily. The Constitution may give the president only limited powers, but few limits are set on the extra influence that a popular president can wield. As Albert Reynolds said about former president Mary Robinson, you don’t argue with popularity ratings of 92 per cent.
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Still, there have been some mammoth rows over the years.
Tribalism, revenge, clash of egos – all have played their part in confrontations between heads of government and heads of State. The most dramatic was in 1976 between taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and Fianna Fáil-nominated president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. This was tribal, Civil War stuff. Cosgrave’s friend and minister for defence, Paddy Donegan, called the president “a thundering disgrace” because Ó Dálaigh had referred the government’s Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. Cosgrave refused to have Donegan resign, and so president Ó Dálaigh resigned instead.
An element of revenge was evident in the relationship between taoiseach Charles Haughey and president Paddy Hillery. Relations had been cool in any case since the Arms Trial.
However, this was not helped by the fact that after Garret FitzGerald’s government fell in a budget vote in January 1982, senior Fianna Fáil figures tried to get the president to let Haughey form a government without an election. The president refused to take the calls.
It can hardly be a coincidence that when Haughey became taoiseach, he delayed a much overdue increase to president Hillery’s allowance – then €15,000 (more than half of which at one stage went on feeding the Áras staff) – and increased it only when Brian Lenihan was running for the presidency. It, of course, benefited Mary Robinson.
Robinson’s relationship with Haughey was fraught. He didn’t want to share the national stage with her. Invitations issued to her by organisations to open their conferences were suddenly and mysteriously withdrawn when obstacles were put in their way (in one case relating to Dublin Castle, organisers were told that the venue was State-owned and would only be available if the relevant government minister did the opening). But it was when she wanted to expand her role – do interviews, make speeches, visits outside the country – that he put his foot down.
The big showdown arose over the visit of the Dalai Lama. Robinson admired the exiled leader of the Tibetan people, who were now living under the oppressive rule of China. She had been invited to meet him, but the usual response came from the government – that “it was not appropriate”. The unstated reason was that Ireland wanted to increase trade with China. Robinson decided she had to go, even if it meant that it brought her presidency to an end. At the last minute, Haughey backed off.
For most of her time in the Áras, McAleese was dealing with the party who nominated her, Fianna Fáil – a relatively smooth relationship.
Meanwhile, President Michael D Higgins got away with murder, partly because he is such a skilled and practical political operator. Despite many tussles inside the Labour Party, he never resigned and rarely apologised. He is a genius at branding himself. The Magee tweed suits, the lovable big dogs, are all part of it, as well as his understanding of the importance of culture in shaping our values.
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There’s hardly a member of Aosdána with whom he’s not on first-name terms with, but he’s a football fanatic too. Not slow to speak his mind, he came out against tax cuts on the eve of an election where the largest government party was promising just that. He also implicitly criticised the government over the housing “disaster”. But he survived.
The Constitution lays down what the limited powers of the president are. But in the space left by what the Constitution does not say, popular presidents have found room to highlight what they feel is important. And just like we respond with great pride to symbols like the flag and the anthem, we respond with pride to a president who speaks for us and represents us. It’s a symbolic office – but that, in a way, is its strength.
Olivia O’Leary is a writer and broadcaster
