Michael D. Higgins
Michael Daniel Higgins (Irish: Mícheál Dónal Ó hUigínn; born 18 April 1941) is an Irish politician, poet, broadcaster and sociologist who has served as the ninth president of Ireland since 2011.[2] Entering national politics through the Labour Party, he served as a senator from 1973 to 1977 having been nominated by the Taoiseach.[3] Elected in 1981 as a Teachta Dála (TD), he represented the Galway West constituency from 1981 to 1982 and 1987 to 2011.[3] Between these terms, he returned to Seanad Éireann from 1983 to 1987 as a senator for the National University.[3] He served as minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht from 1993 to 1997 and mayor of Galway from 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991. Higgins was the president of the Labour Party from 2003 to 2011, until he resigned following his election as president of Ireland.[4][5]
For other people named Michael Higgins, see Michael Higgins (disambiguation).
Michael D. Higgins
Bertie Ahern
Galway West
Independent (since 2011)
- Fianna Fáil (before 1968)
- Labour Party (1968–2011)
4, including Alice-Mary
Higgins has used his time in office as president to address issues concerning justice, social equality, social inclusion, anti-sectarianism, anti-racism, and reconciliation. He made the first state visit by an Irish president to the United Kingdom in April 2014.
Higgins ran for a second term as president of Ireland in 2018 and was re-elected in a landslide victory. Higgins attained the largest personal mandate in the history of the Republic of Ireland, with 822,566 first-preference votes. Higgins' second presidential inauguration took place on 11 November 2018.
Early life
Higgins was born on 18 April 1941 in Limerick.[6] His father, John Higgins, was from Ballycar, County Clare, and was a lieutenant with the Charleville Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. John, along with his two brothers Peter and Michael, had been active participants in the Irish War of Independence.[7][8]
When John's father's health grew poor, with alcohol abuse as a contributing factor, John sent Michael, aged five, and his four-year-old brother to live on his unmarried uncle and aunt's farm near Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. His elder twin sisters remained in Limerick.[9] He was educated at Ballycar National School, County Clare and St. Flannan's College, Ennis.[10]
As an undergraduate at University College Galway (UCG), he served as vice-auditor of the college's Literary and Debating Society in 1963–64, and rose to the position of auditor in the 1964–65 academic year. He also served as president of UCG Students' Union in 1964–65. In 1967, Higgins graduated from the American Indiana University Bloomington with a Master of Arts degree in sociology.[11] He also briefly attended the University of Manchester.[12]
In his academic career, Higgins was a statutory lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at UCG[13] and was a visiting professor at Southern Illinois University.[14][15] He resigned his academic posts to concentrate fully on his political career.[16]
Higgins is a fluent Irish language speaker[17] and also speaks Spanish.[18]
Family life
His wife, Sabina Higgins (née Coyne), is an actress and a native of Cloonrane,[19] a townland in County Galway[20][21] near Ballindine, County Mayo. She grew up on a farm there in a family of five girls and two boys.[22]
Higgins met Coyne in 1969, at a party in the family home of journalist Mary Kenny in Dublin.[22][23][24] Higgins proposed over Christmas 1973, and they were married the year after. They have four children: Alice-Mary, Daniel, and twins, John and Michael Jr.; Alice-Mary was elected to Seanad Éireann in 2016.[23][25] He has a Bernese Mountain Dog named Misneach (Courage).[26][27] He previously had two Bernese dogs named Síoda and Bród, who died in 2020 and 2023 respectively.[28][29]
Political career (1973–2011)
Seanad and Dáil Éireann
Higgins originally joined Fianna Fáil in UCG while a mature student and was elected its branch chairman in 1966; he switched to the Labour Party shortly thereafter.[30] He was a Labour candidate in the 1969 and 1973 general elections but was unsuccessful on both occasions.[31] One of the people who canvassed for him was future leader of the Labour Party and Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, who was then a UCG student. Higgins was appointed to the 13th Seanad in 1973 by Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1981 general election as a Labour Party TD.[3] He was re-elected at the February 1982 election; he lost his seat at the November 1982 election (blaming his loss in part on his opposition to the Eighth Amendment),[32] but returned to the Seanad when he was elected by the National University constituency. He served as Mayor of Galway on two occasions, 1982–1983 and 1991–1992. Within the Labour Party during the 1980s he was one of the main figures, along with Emmet Stagg, who opposed going into coalition.
Higgins returned to the Dáil at the 1987 general election and held his seat until the 2011 general election.[31] In 1993, he joined the cabinet as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. During his period as minister he scrapped Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, re-established the Irish Film Board and set up the Irish language television station, Teilifís na Gaeilge (later renamed TG4).[33] He was appointed to the Labour Party front bench in 2000. In 2003, Higgins succeeded Proinsias De Rossa in the symbolic position of the president of the Labour Party, while continuing as the party's spokesman on foreign affairs.
Higgins indicated his interest in contesting the 2004 presidential election for the Labour Party. The party decided on 16 September 2004 against running a candidate in the election, seeing Mary McAleese as unbeatable.[13]
In October 2010, he announced he would not be standing at the 2011 general election.[34] He had until this point been living in a two-bed apartment at Grattan Hall on Mount Street, Dublin. He also has a family home in Galway.[35]
As well as having a successful political career Higgins has had a career as a poet and broadcaster and has produced works of non-fiction.[122][123] He has contributed widely to political and philosophical journals on numerous subjects, among them ideology, the sociology of literature, clientelism in politics,[124] regionalism and the politics of the media. He wrote and presented a television film on Montserrat, entitled The Other Emerald Isle for Channel 4 and his documentary on the life of Noel Browne, for RTÉ, has also been screened.[125]
Higgins has had poems published in a number of periodicals, as well as publishing four collections of his poetry, including The Betrayal (1990), his second book of poems The Season of Fire (1993) and his latest book An Arid Season (2004).[126] His personal notes and work books reside at the National Library of Ireland.[127]
Among Higgins' poems are "The death of the Red Cow" and "The Ass", an ode to a donkey.[128]