As President Michael D Higgins steps down after 14 years, he has earned the nation’s gratitude

With President Michael D Higgins and Brendan Howlin during the 2011 Presidential election campaign at the Wexford Ambassadors initiative in Iveagh House, Dublin

Patrick Comerford

President Michael D Higgins formally relinquishes office as President of Ireland at midnight tonight (Monday 10 November 2025), and Catherine Connolly becomes president at an inauguration ceremony in Dublin Castle tomorrow (Tuesday 11 November 2025).

In her inauguration speech, she is expected to indicate some of the themes and priorities of her presidency and the projects she hopes to undertake. After her election victory, she spoke in Dublin Castle of a new-style Republic, so tomorrow she may touch on that and on her plans to revisit communities across the country she visited during her campaign.

As President Michael D Higgins prepares to step down tonight, I find it appropriate to look back on my memories of his commitment to peace and social justice, and some of the many achievements of this president, poet, politician, academic and campaigner.

I first got to know Michael Higgins over 50 years ago. We were both delegates at the Labour Party conference in Cork in 1973, when he slept on the floor in the rooms I was sharing with Philip orish, another Wexford constituency delegate in Moore’s Hotel.

Both as a senator (1973-1977, 1983-1987) and as a TD (1981-1982, 1987-2011), he was an active supporter of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), took part in the protests against President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Ireland in 1984 and later against the war in Iraq, and was also deeply committed to campaign groups focussed on Latin American issues, particularly in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

In those years, we took part together in many protests outside the US Embassy in Dublin. I was among his guests in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1992 when he was presented with the Sean MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Prize – Sean MacBride had been president of both Irish CND and the IPB.

The measure of the man’s international acclaim as a poet, a key figure in shaping cultural policies across Europe and his reputation internationally was edident when I was writing regularly for The Irish Times on Greek politics and culture in the 1990s. Once when I was interviewing the Greek Minister of Culture, Professor Evangelos Venizelos, in Athens, the first person he asked about was Michael D Higgins, and he asked me to convey much he appreciated both his poetry and his standing among politicians in Pasok and other European socialist parties.

With President Michael D Higgins at a Pax Christi seminar on cluster munitions in Dublin in 2008

I was invited, unexpectedly, in 2008 to chair a seminar organised by Pax Christi, the International Catholic Peace Movement, on the topic: ‘Towards a Comprehensive Ban on Cluster Bombs.’ The seminar also saw the launch of Pax Christi’s campaign, ‘Make Cluster Bombs History.’

The speakers included Michael D Higgins, then President of the Labour Party and Labour spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, the President of Pax Christi Ireland, Bishop Raymond Field, and Joe Little of RTÉ, who spoke on the effects of cluster munitions in Lebanon.

When Mr Higgins was elected President in 2011, peace and anti-war groups, including PANA, the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), Shannonwatch and Galway Alliance Against War (GAAW), expressed the hope that his time as President would further the cause of peace and bring a renewed focus on the importance of Irish neutrality, causes he has passionately defended throughout his political career.

He consistently opposed the use of Shannon, a civilian airport, for the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was critical of the apparent Irish collusion with the US government in relation to suspected rendition flights through Shannon, and he once called on the government to withdraw Irish military personnel from Afghanistan. Hundreds of armed US troops passed through Shannon Airport each day without any oversight or inspection of planes suspected of carrying illegally kidnapped prisoners, CIA assassination crews or dangerous munitions.

President McAleese opened the doors of Áras an Uachtaráin to people working for peace, development and human rights

When his presidential election campaign began in June 2011, Michael D Higgins was one of the speakers at the launch of the Wexford Ambassadors programme in Iveagh House, Dublin. The programme was launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure, Brendan Howlin, Labour TD for Wexford, and the chair of Wexford County Council, Councillor Michael Kavangh. The first four appointed Wexford Ambassadors that evening were the writers Colm Tóibín and Eoin Colfer, the rugby international Gordon D’Arcy and the soccer international Kevin Doyle. His predecessor as President, President Mary McAleese, opened the doors of Áras an Uachtaráin to those she encouraged in work for peace, development, human rights and interfaith dialogue.

She warmly welcomed me to Áras an Uachtaráin on Sean MacBride’s 100th birthday; when she publicly thanked and affirmed Development and Mission workers and agencies for work in Africa; and when an interfaith group of Christians and Muslims from Egypt were visiting Ireland in 2006.

President Higgins was in office during the difficult ‘decade of centenaries’, including those of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, the 1913 Lock-Out, World War I and its many battles, the 1916 Rising, the First Dail and the Irish War of Independence, and he lived up to his pledge that in office he would continue President McAleese’s work to help heal the wounds of the Troubles in Ireland.

His first official engagement as President of Ireland was attending the Remembrance Sunday service in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and he was there again as President for the last time yesterday. His second inauguration ceremony in 2018 was held in the evening so that he could attend the Armistice Day commemorations in the morning – two opportunities that President-elect Connolly should not miss when she is in office and seeks to demonstrate that she is the President for all the people.

Bruce Kent and President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize medals in All Hallows College, Drumcondra in 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A year after his inauguration, and 20 years after he received the Sean MacBride Peace Prize, President Higgins was invited by the International Peace Bureau to present the 2012 Sean MacBride Peace Prize to two Arab activists, Dr Lina Ben Mhenni from Tunisia and Dr Nawal El-Sadaawi from Egypt, for their courage and contributions to the ‘Arab Spring.’ I was present as President of Irish CND at the ceremony and his address in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, that evening.

The ceremony marked the opening of the annual conference of the International Peace Bureau, and it was the first time the IPB council ever met in Ireland in over 100 years of its history. Old friends and fellow campaigners who were there that night included Caitriona Lawlor, who worked for many years with Sean MacBride, Brendan Butler, a long-time activist on Central American rights, David Hutchinson-Edgar of Irish CND, Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, Joe Murray of Afri, Tony D’Souza of Pax Christi, and Rob Farmichael, the nonviolence activist.

The evening ended in conversation with President Higgins and the veteran international peace activist, the late Bruce Kent, who had been a personal friend since the mid-1970s.

Canon Patrick Comerford speaking at the National Famine Commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery with President Michael D Higgins in 2016 (Photograph: Church Review)

President Higgins and I both spoke at the annual National Famine Commemoration in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, in 2016, when he accused European nations failing to respond to their humanitarian obligations to refugees and said they should learn the lessons of the Great Famine in Ireland. He compared some of the rhetoric used today about people crossing the Mediterranean ‘marine grave’ to media reports during the worst period of Ireland’s 19th century catastrophe. Between 1845 and 1849, over a million people died of hunger and related diseases, and two million fled a country ‘with no hope.’ Many who emigrated faced fresh marginalisation on arrival on foreign shores.

President Higgins asked: ‘Is there not a lesson for all of us, as we are faced in our own time with the largest number of displaced people since World War II, as the Mediterranean becomes, for many, a marine grave, as European nations fail to respond to their humanitarian obligations?’

I was at that commemorative service on behalf of the Church of Ireland and said in my prayers: ‘As we remember those who were driven from this land in their hunger, in their thirst, and in their quest for justice and mercy, and how they left on the high seas, let us pray for those who are driven from their own lands as they hungered and thirsted for justice and mercy.’

I added: ‘Let us pray in particular for the people of Syria, for those who are on the high seas in the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and those who flee places where climate change and our inaction deprives them of justice and forces them to choose between, on the one hand, hunger and thirst at home, and short measures of justice and mercy in the countries they reach.’

Another speaker that Sunday was the then Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Ms Heather Humphreys, the other candidate in last month’s Presidential election.

Ireland has been well served by Michael D Higgins as President of Ireland, and he has used the office to keep reminding everyone of important values both at home and internationally.

President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, in 2012

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 10, Monday 10 November 2025

You could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you (Luke 17: 6) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. This week began with the Third Sunday before Advent yesterday, which was also Remembrance Sunday. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Leo the Great (461), Bishop of Rome, Teacher of the Faith.

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt

Luke 17: 1-6 (NRSVA):

1 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’

5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.’

Mulberry Street in Whitechapel … welcomed 400 refugees who had been trafficked by boat in 1764 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflections:

I can honestly admit that I do not have green fingers.

For most of my life, I have no interest in gardening. I like sitting in a garden, reading in the sunshine, listening to the sound of the birds or a small fountain, enjoying the shade of the trees, and in summertime, eating out in the open.

So, it is not that I do not enjoy the garden. It is just that I have always felt I am no good at it.

It is an attitude that may have been nurtured and cultured from heavy hay-fever in my early childhood, hay-fever that comes back to haunt me perennially at the beginning of each summer.

I once bought a willow tree, in the early 1980s, sat with it in the back of a small car all the way back across Dublin, holding on to the tree as it stuck out the side window. By the time I got home, I was covered in rashes, and my eyes, ears and nose were in a deep state of irritation. It must have been related to the willow trees in the Psalms, because afterwards I sat down and wept.

For that reason alone, you could not call me a ‘tree hugger.’ But do not get me wrong … I really do like trees.

I relish spending time in the vast, expansive olive groves that stretch for miles and miles along the mountainsides in Crete, or in vineyards where the olive groves protect the vines.

But I cannot be trusted with trees. I was once given a present of a miniature orange tree … and it died within weeks. I have been given presents of not one, but two olive trees. One, sadly, died, the other grew but remained a tiny little thing.

Perhaps if I had just a little faith in my ability to help trees to grow, they would survive and mature.

Mulberries were introduced to England by the Romans and were commonly used for making mediaeval ‘murrey’ (sweet pottage) as well as for medicinal purposes. They were reintroduced in the early 17th century when James tried to establish native silk production in 1607-1609 when around 10,000 saplings were imported and distributed by William Stallenge and François Verton through local officials at six shillings for a hundred plants, less for packets of seeds.

The commercial project failed, black mulberries (morus nigra) being acquired rather than the white (morus alba) that silkworms tend to favour. But one of these mulberry plantations gave its name to Mulberry Street, a short quiet back street in Whitechapel, with the tall bell-tower of Saint Boniface, the German Roman Catholic Church, at one end.

There was a second mulberry garden close by, across Whitechapel Road in Mile End New Town, north of what is now Old Montague Street and east of Greatorex (formerly Great Garden) Street. Land to the east of that south of Old Montague Street appears also to have been similarly planted. Spitalfields was already at the beginning of the 17th century a centre of silk throwing and weaving.

The mulberry garden in Whitechapel became a market garden and then a pleasure ground, and was used of for a few weeks in 1764 as a temporary asylum for refugees. A tented camp was set up for around 400 deceived and destitute refugees from the Palatinate and Bohemia who had been abandoned on what they had thought was a journey to Nova Scotia. With local fundraising and charitable efforts, iniiated primarily by local churches and clergy, the refugees eventually left and found homes in South Carolina.

Housing development in the area began in the 1780s and 1790s. The Mulberry Tree public house once stood on the north side of Little Holloway Street, while Union Row later became Mulberry Street.

You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem The Hollow Men, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

However, the tree Christ names (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree we come across later in this Gospel as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.

Here are six little vignettes about faith that I came across recently:

1, Once all the villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one little boy came with an umbrella. That is faith.

2, When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust.

3, Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm to wake up. That is hope.

4, We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence.

5, We see the world suffering, but still people get married and have children. That is love.

6, There is an old man who wears a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.’ That is attitude.

This morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to pay attention to our attitude to, to the quality of, our faith, trust, hope, confidence, love and positivity. And if we do so, we will be surprised by the results.

Meanwhile, the refugees in the Mulberry Gardens in Whitechapel over 260 years are a reminder that people have always been the victims of traffickers and people smugglers and that refugees have been arriving from cotinental Europe on these islands without documentation for centuries. But the compassionate and practical response of the local churches and clergy shows that small actions by people of faith, no matter what size that faith may be, can bring about positive results and create justice.

Mulberry Hall at 17-19 Stonegate, York, dates from 1434 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 10 November 2025):

The theme this week (9 to 15 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hope for the Future’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Laura D’Henin-Ivers, Chief Executive Officer at Hope for the Future, to mark the opening of COP30 in Brazil today.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 10 November 2025) invites us to pray:

Creator God, you have entrusted us with this beautiful world. Forgive us for the ways we have misused its gifts and failed to protect its wonders. Inspire us to be faithful stewards, cherishing the land, waters, and all creatures who share this home with us.

During my prayers this morning I am also giving thanks for the 14 years Michael D Higgins has been President of Ireland, and the ways he has used that office to be a voice for social justice and peace around the world. I shall reflect on that again later this evening as term of office draws to a close.

Olive groves on the slopes beneath Piskopianó in Crete … why did Jesus talk about mustard plants and mulberry trees and not about olive trees? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

God our Father,
who made your servant Leo strong in the defence of the faith:
fill your Church with the spirit of truth
that, guided by humility and governed by love,
she may prevail against the powers of evil;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Leo to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Figs ripening on a fig tree near the beach at Platanias, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org