We can take pride in Rory’s glory and the value of our Presidency

SOMEBODY asked me on Sunday was I disappointed not to have won the Labour nomination for the Presidential election.

All I could think of to say was that I was, really disappointed — but I’d be completely gutted if Rory McIlroy didn’t clinch the US Open.

Well, he did, in grand style. I was able to watch a real world-beater from the comfort of an armchair, a glass of wine at my elbow and my new grand-daughter cuddled up in her mum’s arms in the chair next to me. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Isn’t sport wonderful anyway? There’s no other field of endeavour that allows human stories to intertwine with great talent. All the talk on the television and among sports aficionados was of Rory’s meltdown in the Masters and whether it would happen again. And I must admit that when he teed up at the 10th hole yesterday (the hole where it all went wrong in Augusta) we all wondered in my house what was going through his mind.

As everyone knows, he hit a magnificent shot to within inches of the hole, and for the first time in the day allowed himself a grin and a high-five with his caddy. I could be entirely wrong, but I thought I detected a hint of relief that the most important back nine of his young life had started so well. The pressure was off from that moment on.

There was a great piece yesterday in the New York Times about the quiet man in McIlroy’s life, his father Gerry. According to the piece, Gerry McIlroy grew up in public housing outside Belfast, just 200 yards from Holywood Golf Club, where he became a very good amateur golfer and worked as a barman. He recognised his son’s talent very early — at the age of four, Rory was hitting balls in the house, chipping them through an open kitchen door and into the mouth of his mother’s washing machine.

In order to support the development of their son’s talent — coaching and travel were only part of the expense — Gerry and his wife Rosie spent a lot of the next few years doing several jobs. Rosie worked the night shift at the local 3M factory and tended house during the day. Gerry cleaned the locker rooms at a local rugby and cricket club in the mornings, worked as a barman at his golf club in the afternoon, then worked the bar at the rugby club until midnight.

It paid off — the family will be comfortable for the rest of their lives, and Gerry spent his father’s day this year doing something a father can only dream of — watching his son conquer the world. It was a joy to watch it on television – and all the more so because the sublime manner of McIlroy’s victory took all the tension out of the occasion.

But anyway, back to the Presidential election. My part in the story is over, and Michael D takes up the reins for Labour now. We had what they’d call in America a primary election, and it was a fascinating contest in many ways. I never thought I’d be involved in a contest with people I’m happy to regard as friends, conducted on the basis of mutual respect. So at the end there was no blood on the floor, and no wounds to bind up. After the result was announced I told the selection convention — I meant it — that in my view the party had made a unanimous choice and we all had to rally around it, and support our candidate in any way we can.

We don’t know the actual date of the election yet. Ireland’s next President must be inaugurated on November 11 at the latest, so a likely election date is around October 20. On that basis we’re about 125 days away fro choosing a new president of Ireland.

So what that means, I think, is that we’ll go through another 45 days or so of cynical and superficial commentary about the meaningless of the office. Then battle will begin to be joined, and a sense of contest will start.. If history is anything to go by, the last 30 days or so of the Presidential election will be a tense and exciting affair, perhaps with the outcome in the balance right up to the end.

Those three phases will be followed in the fullness of time by a fourth, when we all look back with affection and respect on the President we elect in October. That’s always the way it is. Some of the people who are now mouthing meaningless clichés like “happy-clappy”, the way Tom McGurk kept repeating on last Monday’s Frontline programme, will be the first to say how important a role was played by X or Y in the office itself.

I suppose I can say it now, as someone who no longer has a vested interest, but I really wish people like that would grow up. I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve been asked over the last few months whether we can afford a Presidency – and the question is always prefaced by “in these difficult times”. Well, last year it was worked out that every kilometre of the M8 Motorway to Cork cost just over €10 million. On that basis the presidency costs roughly the same each year as it costs to build about 300 yards of motorway. It’s not a lot, is it?

But the more important question, the real question, is never asked. Does the Presidency still add democratic value to our country? The biggest mistake any country can make is to measure its democracy by how much it costs – although countries only tend to realise how big a mistake that is after they have made it, and after their democracy is fatally undermined.

I’m not saying that we should ever ignore the cost of anything – that approach has been responsible for scandalous waste throughout every area of public expenditure. But when people dismiss the Presidency as meaningless and expensive — especially when they then go on to prove that they haven’t a clue how much it actually costs — it makes me despair.

Cheap populism, of the kind we’re going to see again and again during this phase of the Presidential election cycle, is a poor substitute for analysis and argument about what we want to see our President doing. I’ve read more old rubbish in the last few weeks about my hair, my beard, the fact that I wore a suit on television (scandal of scandals) than about anything I’ve said. So my heart goes out to the remaining candidates in the race who will have to put up with that guff for a while yet.

But it will pass, and people will start to take the Presidency really seriously as we get closer to the date of the election. I think most of us know what we want in a President of Ireland — we want to be proud of him or her, just as we want them to be proud of us.

If we can generate that pride in the next 125 days, there’s endless value in that.