Cormac MacConnell: My belated apology to President Michael D Higgins

This piece, all those years later, is my apology to President Higgins for my failure to give him even one stroke during the decades when I could have done so.

The dreadful truth facing me in these twilight years is that when I eventually and inevitably find myself standing outside the hot gates of Purgatory, I will be aware in advance that I will have to spend an extra decade and more within because, though I resided in his political constituency of Galway West for more than 20 years, I never once voted for Michael D Higgins.

Not even a stroke at the bottom of any ballot paper of the many elections of that era.