Michael D Higgins insists he is President of Ireland, refuses to commemorate partition

Let's sum up shall we? The DUP are a party who hate Irish people and culture, Catholics, gay people, blames the Irish for the effects of Brexit and who ridicules the Irish language and opposes its official recognition in line with the Good Friday agreement. Their entire existence is based on the frankly ignorant view that there is nothing Irish about Northern Ireland, a view which often leads them to act in highly offensive and denigrating ways.

An invite has been sent to the Irish president where 1) his title has been (let's face it) purposely got wrong so that a political point could be made and where 2) the event referred to was intended to "mark the centenaries of the partition of Ireland". The partition of the state led to the creation of a cold house for Irish people where they were subjected to voting inequality, discrimination in terms of housing, jobs and brutality from the police and terrorist organisations. Let's be honest the DUP don't recognise that this was a bad thing.

Now the president of Ireland is being invited to an event where all of that is celebrated by people who couldn't hold in their hatred long enough to get his title right on the invite and he refuses.....

Well fair play to him. The DUP continuously refuse to implement the Good Friday agreement, mock Irish culture, the Irish people, gay people and anyone different to them and then complain that their culture isn't being respected. They deserve to be called out on this. They cannot and should not receive respect when they can't afford the basic respect to others.

People are saying he should ignore all of this and go to an event in which even the party invite was intended as a put down. By that logic gay people should attend events where the title of the event celebrates their discrimination and where even the invite contains an insult.

Blamed the Travellers

As far as I'm concerned Higgins is doing exactly that, he isn't pandering to the DUP. This is a good thing, moderate Unionists should really take note. Once Unionism stops pandering and taking heed of the DUP then we'll see some proper forward motion. They're doing everything in their power to hold everyone else back and have done sweet **** all in helping the Unionist community, especially the working class. I was down the Shankill recently, it's an absolute dive compared to the Falls at the minute. The DUP love to blame the nationalists and spout on about how they're getting everything and Unionists are getting nothing. This is just another "look, nothings changed! They hate us down south...yadda yadda yadda" you know the shtick, we all do.

The only reason they are in this position is because the DUP couldn't give a flying **** about the working class, they know the hateful rhetoric will secure their votes. I'd guarantee if the UUP/Alliance were the point of contact on this it would have been dealt with in a amenable manner.

This could have very easily been something arranged by the respective Church's but it seems that the DUP got involved and turned it into a game of political point scoring. They don't deserve the time of day.

To be fair it was all those lads that travelled over from Scotland back in the day that got us into this mess so he'd be right in a way.

There was always a bit of agro with the British over the name of Ireland. Perfidious Albion insisted (in law) as referring to Ireland as Republic of Ireland (from 1948 Westminister Act). Prior to that the official name they used was Éire, so basically they refused to accept what Ireland called itself (although it was acceptable everywhere else in the world). It went against the Brits when they wanted something though that required a legal response. For example, with extradition requests (lots of them during the Troubles), the Irish Gov. would return the requests because there was no such place as a country called ''Republic of Ireland'' so if they wanted something they had to grin and bare it.

I also seem to recall hearing that when writing to the President of Ireland, they could not get themselves to address if as such an used to fudge it by reffering to them as ''Irish President''. They just did that to needle/be disrespectful. Thats why it was part of the GFA to use Ireland's proper name when addressing it.

Michael D. would have been well aware of this and would have known that there was intent from northern unionists to insult the office of President and why he wouldn't stand for it.

Unionists live in a state called 'Northern Ireland' - maybe they should recognise that the President of Ireland speaks for a very large proportion of people who do live there. None of the nationalist parties are going to the event who regard him as their President, so it would be an insult to them if he turned up proporting to be representing them.

Well I don't know about you but I live in and pay my taxes in this Republic of Ireland. We all understand this and we understand when we vote for a president, just who they are president of.

The idea that Higgins is president of all Ireland is as delusional as the constitutional idea that Irish is the First Language. Theoretically he may aspire to it and probably also considers himself el president of the entire Diaspora as well, but it's as fanciful as the idea we're all conversing as Gaeilge daily.

how so? what is the name of this country in English?

Personally I can take MDH with a pinch of salt but he's 100% correct in his decision. Absolute ludicrous nonsense coming out of John Bruton earlier, roundly slapped back into is substantial retirement pot, by numerous Constitutional experts and indeed members of his own party, for a moment I thought he was actually a member if the Odious DUP and not a former FG Taoiseach (albeit only briefly thank heavens)

Looking at this objectively how could MDH realistically have accepted an invitation to an event commemorating Partition, it would have been absurd to do so and dare I say far more controversial had he done so.

A nothing story blown out of all proportions by an ex FG Taoiseach who clearly hasn't a clue about the Constitution and the DUP Bigots blowing more hot air.

If you are going to quote the constitution you might want to use full sentences.

"The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland."

Here's a headline that the DUP will vomit at the sight of 😁

Both I suspect 😏

Michael D. Higgins was referring to correpondence from Weir from the DUP at that stage if you read the report.

“They keep referring to me as the President of the Republic of Ireland - I am the President of Ireland,” he said.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/president-michael-d-higgins-denies-snub-over-church-event-with-queen-elizabeth-as-he-hits-out-at-dup-40859269.html

100 years ago a civil war occured in the Republic over the partition of Ireland. In our constitution we previously claimed juristiction over the whole island. As part of GFA we changed constitution to effectively accept partition if that was what majority in North wanted.

It is one thing accepting partition in the Republic which to me is right and proper and was accepted by vast majority in a referendum, it is a whole different matter to celebrate it.

Pres Higgins is speaking for the people of the Republic in not accepting a celebration of partition. I can understand the Protestant Churches celebrating partition but cannot understand Catholic Church if it does. For the first 75 years of partition the North was a cold place for Catholics.

What exactly is there to celebrate about the North this past 100 years. It has been a disaster for everyone there. It has improved this past 25 years but Brexit saga there shows us it still has a long way to go to have something to celebrate.