The first three episodes of Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe's new podcast about the history of the Presidency, What Were We Like? are available now on the RTÉ Radio Player or wherever you get your podcasts.
Below, What Were We Like? host Diarmaid Ferriter takes a deeper dive into the history of the hallowed office...
It has often ben maintained that James Joyce's Ulysses is the most unread book in Ireland, but the Irish constitution might run it close. In recent decades, before and during presidential election campaigns, much energy and space has been devoted to speculation about candidates, the long, drawn-out nominations process, the record to date of the selected candidates and the skeletons that might lie in their political and personal cupboards.
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What is little discussed during all that are the fundamentals associated with the office, elaborated on in the constitution. When the draft constitution that created the presidency was debated in the Dáil in May 1937, over the course of 90 hours, 27 of those hours were devoted to the proposed presidency. De Valera’s opponents expressed alarm that the office could potentially undermine democracy. Some of the opposition involved theatrical outrage; others were motivated by the depth of the still raw civil war enmities. But there was also genuine puzzlement: would the president be akin to a powerless monarch, or was there a plan to potentially enable him (and it was only envisaged then that the president would be a man) to ride roughshod over parliament and government?
The history of the presidency is replete with colour, humanity, dignity, public controversy and private seething.
A flavour of the disquiet was voiced in the Irish Independent newspaper which referred to "the seed of dictatorship in the Nazi-like powers to be conferred on the president." But de Valera insisted it would be inappropriate "that the president should be allowed to make any statement or give any address which would be contrary to the policy or the views of the government of the day". He presumably believed the potential for conflict could be avoided through the provision about formal presidential addresses needing prior approval. But there is no constitutional reference to policing the president in all other comments and de Valera acknowledged in relation to the presidency "you cannot take away from human beings their political views". Yet the president, he suggested, would merely offer to the Taoiseach "the view that the hurler on the ditch can get of the game, looking at it from the point of view of the national interest".
the office could potentially undermine democracy.'
Nearly all presidential powers can only be exercised on the advice of the government. The two cases in which a president can act on their own initiative - refusing to dissolve the Dáil if the Taoiseach loses the support of a majority in the Dáil or refer a bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality - have caused tension and controversy in the past. Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh reigned as president in 1976 after he was insulted by the Minister for Defence for referring the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court. Patrick Hillery in January 1982 resisted pressure from Fianna Fáil members who rang the Arás urging him to refuse a Dáil dissolution after the Fine Gael Labour coalition lost a budget vote as FF insisted it could form a government without an election. Hillery told his staff members to "bar the gates" of Arás if FF members sought to apply the pressure in person. There have been various other controversies; the first president, Douglas Hyde was removed as a patron of the GAA after attending an international soccer match in 1938; Mary Robinson shook the hand of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in 1993 before the IRA ceasefire.
successful campaign in 1990 that the office could be modernised'.
The presidency was originally envisaged as an office that would see a ceremonial head of state encapsulate key aspects of Irish identity and perhaps provide an anchor for the state in troubled times. Seán T. O’Kelly, president from 1945-59, was the first to take the presidency abroad and addressed the joint houses of Congress in the US in 1959. Various suggestions were made well before Mary Robinson’s successful campaign in 1990 that the office could be modernised or projected in a different way. In 1966, Fine Gael’s Tom O’Higgins nearly defeated Eamon de Valera by promising to bring a youthful vigour and modernity to the office, and in 1973 Erskine Childers proposed that he would convene "think tanks" on important social matters, but he was not permitted to do so by the government. Mary McAleese from 1997 to 2011 was able to bring her "bridge building" theme to a successful conclusion by hosting a visit of Queen Elizabeth II as the icing on the peace process cake. It was a reminder of the potential of the presidency to make powerful use of symbolism. Our current president, Michael D. Higgins, insisting he would be no "puppet", has waded in to policy questions with little public pushback from various governments.
The history of the presidency is replete with colour, humanity, dignity, public controversy and private seething. Going through the archives of various presidencies invites re-evaluation of key moments and discovery of new angles, including the role of less well-known characters like civil servant Michael McDunphy, the secretary to Douglas Hyde, who fought vigorously in the early years for the office to be respected. Charting the evolution of the office and its projection opens a window on to debates about culture and language, identity, values, political, social and economic change, gender and how we like ourselves to be seen. It also highlights the ongoing relevance of the question first raised in 1937: should the president be a hurler on the ditch in the national interest?
The first three episodes of Diarmaid Ferriter and Catriona Crowe's new podcast about the history of the Presidency, What Were We Like? are available now on the RTÉ Radio Player or wherever you get your podcasts. The last two episodes will be out before polling day on Friday October 24.
