September--November A poetic ending to a presidential farce
The presidential election campaign, which had been running since early summer 2011, had elements of tragedy, comedy and at times downright farce.
It began with a debate over nomination procedures: it was too difficult to be selected as a candidate, argued many.
In the end, there was no shortage of them. Seven were selected at the close of nominations on September 29: Mary Davis, Dana Rosemary Scallon, Gay Mitchell, Michael D Higgins, Seán Gallagher, David Norris and Martin McGuinness.
Early polls suggested that it might be a run-off between Higgins and Norris, but as the campaign went on Gallagher's numbers began to improve.
The other candidates became mired in controversies of various magnitudes, and a media "narrative" about each one grew up and found traction with voters.
Davis (multiple State board appointments), Norris (letters in support of a former lover convicted of rape), Dana (serial family dramas and a tyre blow-out), McGuinness (IRA past) and Mitchell (simply grumpy) found themselves talking about anything other than the presidency. Soon, Higgins and Gallagher were the only ones with a realistic chance of election. And Higgins, an elder statesman of the Labour Party, was beginning to slip behind. A poll on October 15 put Gallagher on 39pc and Higgins on 27pc. These two were so far ahead of the others (Mitchell, for instance, had slipped to 8pc) that there was a suggestion that they should go head-to-head in a special TV debate.
The TV debate held on RTÉ's Prime Time programme on October 24, three days before polling day, will go down as one of the most dramatic turning points in Irish political history.
Seán Gallagher seemed to be coasting to victory. Three polls had put him on about 40pc, some 12 to 15 points ahead of Higgins. He had one foot across the threshold of the Arás.
Then McGuinness challenged him about a donation to Fianna Fáil he had allegedly collected from a convicted fuel smuggler. Gallagher was caught off guard. His phrase "there may have been an envelope" was described by Higgins as "unfortunate".
It was as if a switch had been thrown. Gallagher's links to Fianna Fáil, his talk of brown envelopes, doubts over his business record, all these seemed to crystalise in voters' minds.
Higgins won almost 40pc of the vote to Gallagher's 28.5pc. McGuinness was third with 13.7pc, with Mitchell (6.4pc), Norris (6.2pc) Dana (2.9pc) and Davis (2.7pc) trailing behind.
On Friday, November 11, Higgins was inaugurated as the ninth President of Ireland. On his first public engagements, he was welcomed be the public who perhaps realised the right man had been elected after all.
Originally published in
