"In 2014 he undertook a state visit to the UK at the ­invitation of Queen Elizabeth. Before leaving, he said the task was not to "wipe the slate clean" of all the distrust and difficulties of the past, but to look to the future. "The challenge is to hand to a future generation all of the prospects of the future. You are not inviting them to an amnesia about any deep dispute," he said. His trip was a resounding success."
"Yet he had no trouble ruffling feathers when it came to holding his position on the right of the oppressed. His views on Palestine landed him in especially hot water. His embrace of the arts and his sense of equity and fairness never weakened. Mr Higgins once said: "Every age, after all, must have its own 'aisling' and dream of a better, kinder, happier, shared world.""
Michael D Higgins served fourteen years as president, responding calmly to turbulence and crises. He interrupted a Rome holiday in 2013 to sign emergency legislation to ­liquidate the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) and later signed emergency Covid powers in March 2020. He undertook a 2014 state visit to the UK, urging remembrance of past disputes while looking to the future. He pledged to be a president for all people and remained popular. He attracted controversy over his stance on Palestine while consistently championing the arts, equity and a kinder shared world. The presidency now passes to Catherine Connolly.
#michael-d-higgins #irish-presidency #emergency-legislation #arts-and-social-equity #palestine-controversy
Read at Irish Independent
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]