Opinion

ANALYSIS: The president's judgement looks questionable as the centenary service saga gets curiouser and curiouser

President Michael D Higgins. Picture by Julien Behal
President Michael D Higgins. Picture by Julien Behal President Michael D Higgins. Picture by Julien Behal

MICHAEL D Higgins’ reasons for not attending next month’s centenary church service in Armagh were relayed to us from Rome yesterday morning, providing some explanation for his decision – yet only up to a point. Many observers felt there were holes in the narrative. Something wasn’t quite right.

The president subsequently clarified elements of what he said, seemingly correcting himself over the claim that he’d been referred to in the invitation as ‘President of the Republic of Ireland’, when he was actually highlighting what Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had called him on Thursday.

It was yet another twist in a saga that increasingly reflects poorly on the president, someone who over the past decade has gone out of his way not to offend unionists and to be as inclusive as possible.

Initially, he’d said that the event had become politicised, later explaining that the title – Service of Reflection and Hope, to mark the Centenary and partition of Ireland and the formation of Northern Ireland – did not constitute a “neutral statement politically". Yet the invitation he was sent – published today in The Irish News – is couched in deliberately conciliatory language.

It speaks of providing an “opportunity for honest reflection” and an “acknowledgement of failures and hurts” of the past 100 years. The theme of “building a future marked by peace, reconciliation and a commitment to the common good” chimes with everything we’ve come associate with Michael D Higgins – making his decision not to go look more and more curious.

The natural reaction of many nationalists and republicans is to applaud the president’s decision. Why should he celebrate or commemorate something which resulted in exclusively negative consequences for Ireland, and especially for those people in the north who remained under British rule?

This is a valid opinion but on the evidence to date we would have assumed it’s not one shared by Michael D Higgins.

The criticism from the DUP has clearly irked him too, as well it might, given the party’s history of agitation against all things cross-border and its opposition to ecumenicalism. But that is a mere sideshow in this unfortunate episode.

The issues the president has cited can be characterised as relatively minor and could surely have been overcome with some discreet discussions between his officials and the organisers. The question is why this unedifying drama has been allowed to play out in public, in this manner.

Scrutiny of a head of state is far from commonplace but given the delicate nature of north-south relations at present, it will be helpful for President Higgins, on his return, to elaborate on his reasons for declining the invitation and making it unambiguously clear where the problem or problems lay.