Michael D Higgins Interview: Statesman of the game

Ahead of today’s President’s Cup match in Cork, President Michael D Higgins sits down to talk football with Liam Mackey and the result is a conversation encompassing the League of Ireland, Fifa, Roy Keane, Jose Mourinho and Kofi Annan, as well as Seamus Coleman meeting the Duke of Edinburgh, that Jon Walters selfie and how he’d like to see Ireland play at Euro 2016.

Beyond the formal grandeur of the state rooms, discretely tucked away, resides the hub and beating heart of Áras an Uachtaráin. This is the literal office of the presidency, where Michael D Higgins works behind an overflowing desk, and the walls reflect some of the consuming passions of his private and public lives, from politics to rock ‘n’ roll.

Here is a full-length portrait of a startlingly youthful Noel Browne and there a photograph of two other Irish luminaries who, sadly, didn’t get to lead such long lives: Rory Gallagher and Philip Lynott together on stage at the Punchestown Festival in 1982.