This article is from page 4 of the 2012-06-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
PRESIDENT of Ireland Michael D Higgins did not call himself a Clare man during his first offical presidental visit to the county, but his brother and sister both agreed it was safe to consider him “one of our own”.
Ireland’s first citizen, who spent his formative years, from the age of five to 19, living in his parental home of Ballycar, Newmarket on Fergus, would not describe himself as a Clare man but a man with many associations with different counties.
“Yes indeed I associate myself with Clare.
“There are many origins I have that are very simply understood,” he said.
“My father and my grandfather and my greatgrandfather have been associated with County Clare since time immemorial. I am glad to say in the 1901 census in the townland of Ballycar there are four families of Higgins. And once again as a result of my brother’s [John] activites and his sons, there are four families in Ballycar again.”
The President explained that his mother came from an area near Charleville in Cork and her family continue to live there.
A former TD for Galway West, he described how the city accepted him as a migrant and its mayor twice.
“Galway is where my own fam- ily have been born and rared,” he added.
While the president maintained his life experiences have been made up of many counties, including the city of Limerick where he was born, all have a common thread of both rural and urban life.
It is these experiences that have formed the ninth President of Ireland, who admited that coming back to Clare as the country’s first citizen was like coming home.