Literary politicians are few and far between — but that's a recent trend

Paschal Donohoe has reviewed books for the papers and radio shows, judged literary competitions and frequently surprised authors at launches and literary festivals by having actually read their work.

This November marks the departure of two men from different sides of the political spectrum from public life, as Michael D Higgins retires, and Paschal Donohoe starts his new role in the World Bank. 

One thing they do have in common, however, is their interest in literature. Everybody knows Higgins is a poet and a public intellectual. 

Meanwhile, Donohoe has reviewed books for the papers and radio shows, judged literary competitions and frequently surprised authors at launches and literary festivals by having actually read their work. 

While it is not unusual for a politician to review the biography of a former colleague for a newspaper, Donohoe’s interests extend beyond economics and history into horror and literary fiction. He even used his last speech in Dáil Éireann to call for more funding for libraries. 

Some of you reading this will no doubt think “so what if some politician likes reading, why is that a big deal?” and I agree it should not be a big deal; a government minister should not be an outlier for being a bookworm. And yet, here we are. 

This was not always the case, however, and Ireland’s literary and political spheres used to overlap far more intimately than they do today.

From the birth of the Free State, the appointment of poets WB Yeats and Darrell Figgis to the Seanad, and Douglas Hyde to the presidency, normalised the role of the writer in Irish society. 

In the 1910s, a lot of emerging politicians were failed writers (the 1916 poets, for example) and emerging writers were failed politicians — Joyce’s failure to rise above the lowest ranks of student union politics are fortune’s gift to world literature. 

From the birth of the Free State, the appointment of poets WB Yeats and Darrell Figgis to the Seanad, and Douglas Hyde to the presidency, normalised the role of the writer in Irish society. 

It was during this period that the Abbey Theatre became the first State-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world and the government commissioned the translation of several popular novels, including Dracula, into Irish.

By the 1960s, the joke that the Irish Civil Service was the greatest patron of the arts since the Medicis was well-established, with Brian O’Nolan, Thomas Kinsella, and Máire Mac an tSaoi among others balancing their creative pursuits with a 'Big Job In The Department Up In Dublin'. 

Two writers who rejected this security (or who may not have passed the admission tests) were Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh, who both resented the way the State enjoyed the borrowed cultural prestige of the writers it had effectively exiled. 

Behan, in particular, remarked “it is not the business of Irish playwrights to give publicity to Irish politicians” in response to criticism from Seán Lemass, and told the Belfast Newsletter in 1960 he did not think it was justifiable for the Irish State to collect income tax from writers on the sale of books that it had banned. 

It is unclear how far Behan got in his legal battle with the State on this issue at the time of his death in 1964, but in 1969 Charles J Haughey, as finance minister, introduced the artist's exemption hot on the heels of a liberalisation of censorship laws the previous year.

Soundings was compiled by UCD professor, who became a senator in 1973.

The late 1960s also saw the introduction of free secondary education, a move announced so suddenly the Department of Education had to assemble a temporary poetry textbook quickly for students to work with while they were able to take the time necessary to prepare a more permanent document. 

That temporary textbook was called Soundings, and was still in use 31 years later. It was prepared by UCD professor Augustine 'Gus' Martin, who became a senator shortly afterwards in 1973. 

The 1970s also saw the beginning of Irish presidents namedropping authors in their inauguration speeches. Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh quoted Standish O’Grady, Henry Thoreau and the Táin in his inauguration speech. 

Mary Robinson was the first politician to use Heaney’s “hope and history rhyme” line (dúchas and dóchas rhyme in Ulster Irish) as well as quoting Eavan Boland. McAleese, in keeping with her theme of Building Bridges, included Belfast poet Louis McNeice and Englishman Christopher Logue, along with Yeats and Heaney. All very respectable and high-brow, I’m sure you’ll agree.

On the other end of the literary spectrum were a number of novels penned by politicians in the 1980s and 1990s. Alan Shatter’s novel Laura includes what BookTok fans refer to as “an open-door scene”, which has gone viral many times. 

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn published a novel called the Green Diamond at the end of her Dáil career. It’s hard to tell if that novel is genuinely saucy or if reviewers at the time were just aghast at the idea of a female politician mentioning sex at all. However, it did include the line “sex is better between committed enemies”, which shines a different light entirely on coalition governments.

Who will the most prominent book lovers in Irish politics be from this moment forward? It’s a busy job, but as my English teacher used to say: read for an hour a day, unless you’re too busy, because then you need to read for two hours a day.