Cork South West TD and Social Democrats party leader Holly Cairns will not be contesting the upcoming presidential election, despite some rumours to the contrary over the weekend.
This diminishes West Cork’s chances of being represented in the Áras; in fact, Cork has never been represented in Phoenix Park, with the previous eight presidents hailing from, in chronological order: Roscommon, Dublin, New York, London, Wicklow, Clare, Mayo, and Belfast.
Michael D. Higgins, meanwhile, was born in Limerick.
The closest thing the Rebel county ever had of holding the highest office was when Tom O’Higgins, a boy born at Sunday’s Well in the city.
He ran in the 1966 presidential election under the Fine Gael banner against one other candidate, the sitting president, Fianna Fáil’s Éamon de Valera.
The defeat was narrow, as Dev won the election with 50.5% of the vote.
Interestingly, RTÉ did not cover the campaign. As a sitting president, de Valera would not contest the election.
In the interest of fairness and balance, RTÉ opted to not cover the election at all, even though as president de Valera enjoyed a regular appearance on the national broadcaster throughout the campaign period.
In other, more recent and local political news, Deputy Cairns has confirmed that she will be returning from maternity leave in September; her daughter was born on November 29th last year, the same day as the election.
