For a position with almost no actual power, the Irish presidency still manages to generate the occasional controversy. Some have been faintly comic, some more serious.
The office was designed to embody the nation’s dignity, which in practice for the first few decades meant sitting quietly in Áras an Uachtaráin doing as little as possible.
That has changed in recent years, as the last three incumbents tested the boundaries. But from the very start, our presidents and those who would be president have found ways to ruffle the drapes of the big house in Phoenix Park.
Douglas Hyde kicked out of the GAA
In 1938, a year into his term, the first president attended a soccer match between Ireland and Poland at Dalymount Park. The GAA, then under the terms of the infamous Rule 27, which banned members from attending “foreign games”, responded by expelling the Gaelic League founder and symbol of the Irish nation. Hyde took the insult with silence and dignity. Not the GAA’s finest moment.
Seán T O’Kelly and the Yugoslavia question
One soccer controversy is unfortunate but two seems careless. Hyde’s successor almost succeeded in navigating two full terms without anyone really noticing.
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