Michael D Higgins has hit the news for all of the wrong reasons in 2022, despite the best efforts of his PR team.
The Irish President’s public image has been carefully managed for over a decade now, with propaganda books for children, cozy images of his frolicking with his dogs and the occasional rant about vague inequalities, despite his own Labour party having been the architects of many socio economic problems in Irish society today.
Yet, the veneer is now wearing off.
Higgins made headlines all around the world after a deranged rant recently in which he linked Climate Change to the Islamic slaughter of 50 Catholics on Pentecost Sunday in Nigeria. The Bishop of Rondo, where the attack happened, repeatedly expressed his disgust, but Higgins only doubled down on his conspiracy theory. In an apparent effort to deflect attention, Higgins emerged the following day to attack the government’s housing strategy, in an unprecedented move that many saw as a betrayal of the Office of President, which is by its nature non political. This week, he allowed his wife, a political non entity, the use the official President’s website to broadcast her controversial opinions on the Ukraine War. Whatever people think of her opinions, they had no place on website of the President. What followed was a universal condemnation of Higgins’s repeated transgressions against his own office.
Yet, none of this should be surprising.
Irish people will never be allowed to forget that Eamon de Valera signed a Book of Condolences for Adolf Hitler, yet in 2016 Higgins signed the Book of Condolences for Fidel Castro, whom he called a ‘giant among global leaders’.
Higgins also met with Xi Jinping in 2012 and 2014 and looked very cozy with the Chinese Dictator.
Another friend of Higgins has made headlines this week, Daniel Ortega.
The Nicaraguan Dictator has been at war with Catholics for years, recently turning to imprisoning priests who stand in his way.
The persecution has now increased even more.
Ortega has shut down a Catholic Radio Station, claiming that they did not have permission to broadcast.
They went one further and sent armed forces to storm the church belonging to the Radio Station, shutting off electricity in the process.
The state forces also flung tear gas at Catholics who tried to stop the purge of the church.
The priest was essentially kept hostage within his own house as the Communist thugs surrounded the buildings.
Under Covid laws signed by Higgins, regime forces in Ireland stormed a number of Catholic churches last year and many priests were questioned over apparent transgressions, even as politicians and far left political groups were largely exempted from the same rules.
Higgins and Ortega have been friends for decades, with Ortega even staying in the family home on a visit to Ireland.
With Higgins, and his wife, regularly using the Presidency to sound off on issues that they are concerned about, it is remarkable that such a close friend of Higgins is behaving in this manner without public reproach.
