New Irish President

In so many ways this was a historic occasion. When Mary Robinson embarked on her presidential campaign, it was clear to shrewd political observers that she was a strong and credible candidate for the left--but there can scarcely have been anyone even in her own camp who gave her more than a long-odds, outsider’s chance of putting Brian Lenihan’s candidacy under any real pressure. Now, just six months on, the mold has truly been broken in Irish politics. A candidate for the left has been elected to the highest office in the land. What’s more--and it’s of equal or even greater significance--a woman has been chosen by the people as their president, in the process overturning the weight of centuries of oppression and discrimination.

Those who rhapsodize about the dawning of an new Ireland are perhaps being emotional, but who can blame them? This was a positive, forward-looking, generous, intelligent and ultimately liberated collective decision by the Irish people who implicitly rejected the platitudes, hypocrisy, evasion and deceit which have been the hallmark of Irish political life for far, far too long. It was a defeat, fair and square, for the politics of fear and an embracing of a vision of Ireland that is more open, caring and egalitarian than any we’d been allowed to indulge in the past.

No more can it be presumed that our perceived concept of Ireland is limited to one church, one ideology, one gender, one way. The election of Mary Robinson was an affirmation--specifically, that we are prepared to face up to the challenge of the modern world in a mature, inclusive and thoughtful way.

PAUL BALBIRNIE

Los Angeles