Michael D. Higgins
Michael Daniel Higgins is an Irish politician, poet, sociologist, and broadcaster. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1981 general election as a Labour Party TD. He served as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht from 1993 to 1997 and Mayor of Galway from 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991. Higgins was the President of the Labour Party from 2003 to 2011, until he resigned following his election as President. He ran for a second term in 2018 and was re-elected in a landslide victory.
About Michael D. Higgins in brief
Michael Daniel Higgins is an Irish politician, poet, sociologist, and broadcaster. He has served as the ninth President of Ireland since November 2011. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1981 general election as a Labour Party TD. He served as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht from 1993 to 1997 and Mayor of Galway from 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991. Higgins was the President of the Labour Party from 2003 to 2011, until he resigned following his election as President. He made the first state visit by an Irish president to the United Kingdom in April 2014. Higgins ran for a second term in 2018 and was re-elected in a landslide victory. Higgins’ second presidential inauguration took place on 11 November 2018. He is a fluent Irish language speaker and also speaks Spanish. His wife, Sabina Higgins, is an actress and a native of Cloonrane, a townland in County Galway near Ballindine, County Mayo. She grew up on a farm there in a family of five girls and two boys. He met Coyne in 1969, at a party in the family home of journalist Mary Kenny in Dublin. They have four children: Alice Mary, Daniel and twins John and Michael Jr. ; Alice Mary was elected to Seanad ÉireANN in 2016. He had two Bernese mountain dogs named Bród and Síoda ; Síodas died in 2020. His father, John Higgins, was a lieutenant with the Charleville Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army.
John, along with his two brothers Peter and Michael, had been active participants in the Irish War of Independence. When John’s father’s health grew poor, with alcohol abuse as a contributing factor, John sent Michael, aged five, and his four-year-old brother to live on his unmarried uncle and aunt’s farm near Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. As an undergraduate at University College Galway, he served as Vice-Auditor of the college’s Literary and Debating Society in 1963–64, and rose to the position of Auditor in the 1964–65 academic year. In 1967, Higgins graduated from the American Indiana University Bloomington with a Master of Arts degree in Sociology. In his academic career, he was a Statutory Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at UCG and was a visiting professor at Southern Illinois University. He resigned his academic posts to concentrate fully on his political career. In 1993, he joined the Irish Film Board and set up the Irish language television station, Teilifilm. During his period as Minister, he scrapped the controversial Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, re-established the Irish Language Board and re- established the Irish Telegraphers’ Association. He lost his seat at the 1982 general election but was returned to the Seanad when he was elected by the University of Ireland panel in November 1982.
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