an rás don áras

Tomorrow, Fri 24 October 2025, the Plain People of Ireland will be out to vote for the Next President after half a Dau.II lifetime of President Michael D Higgins aka Mícheál Dónal Ó hUigínn; b. 18 April 1941 - former Minister [Lab] for Arts Culture and the Gaeltacht.  When MiggleD was elected in 2011 he was 70 and swore upon the Sacred Chalice of Tara that he would only strut the stage for a single seven year term in his seven inch boots; and then give way to someone different. But no, he got too comfy on the Presidential sofa and nominated himself for a second term in 2018.  He is now 84 and, whatever his live forever druthers, the constitution compels him to lay down his sceptre. He's been fine. He has pushed the boundaries of Presidential speaking rights and political independence in good ways. And I am happy to have a fellow academic and intellectual represent Ireland - whatever other faults you might have as a professor, you're unlikely to be as thick as pig-dribble.

In May this year, a bit ahead of the commentariat, I posted about the [odds against] candidates for the Top Post in this our Republic. The list looked like the usual motley crew of out-to-grass politicians, pundits and personalities. y'have to ask how?why?wha'? it is that so many party politicians get backed for a formally apolitical post. Four months later, in the last month before nominations closed, even less salubrious creatures emerged from the shadows with hopes for The Crown: 

• Sir-Bob-I-took-the-Soup Geldof [prev]; 
• cage-fighter Conor McGregor [prev]; 
• Bertie "The Envelope" Ahern [prev] [May 10-to-1] got delusional about his Right to the FF nomination in September
• Gareth Sheridan [May 100-to-1] got backing from two CoCos
• Maria "Referendum Níl+Níl" Steen got 18 members [2 short! phew] of the Oireachtas to back her right to a line n the ballot
• Michael "HoherMarsch" Flatley [prev]
• Johanna "Weatherwax" Donnelly!!
• Tony "Lockdown" Holohan [May 200-to-1] [prev]

I could go on, but I'd be getting down beyond the barrel-scrapings. You have to wonder why anyone would put themselves in the media spotlight for obsessive adverse scrutiny and blaggarding. As with Adi Roche [bloboprev Chernobyl dogoodnik] who was smeared out of the 1997 race because of [unfounded] allegations against her brother. Or in 2011, David Norris whose campaign tanked when a 9 y.o. interview was dug up to encourage voters (not slow in these matters) to conflate being gay with paedophilia.

Fianna Fáil, failing Bertie Ahern, chose to shunt ~€500,000 towards the election of a GAA-populist outsider called Jim Gavin [R_abbit-in-headlights source & Licence]. But the normally effective FF Machine failed in their due diligence on his financial, moral, social, genetic back story. His campaign was not going great when journalistic due diligence revealed that Gavin as a not-quite-legal landlord had bilked a tenant of €3,300 in 2009. Collapse of GAA.FF party, He's still on The Ballot, he's very sorry he ever forgot about the rent, he was a man, take him for all in all, so you can still vote for him unlike the wannabees above.

We're left with Catherine Connolly [Ind. woz Lab] and Heather Humphreys [former Fine Gael Minister: like MiggleD, was Minister of Arts Culture and the Gaeltacht. Either of them could do the job without bringing shame upon us all. They are neither of them quite eligible for Free Travel so they are younger than the current incumbent was when he started. I've been quite the fanboi for Connolly since I found her speaking the truth to power on YT in 2021. And my radical Dau.I and Dau.II will also be voting early and often for the only candidate of The Left. But really, is this the best that 5 million citizens can come up with? Maybe we don't want somebody too Inspirational in the Áras?