Far from the political debate around his criticism of the housing crisis, President Michael D Higgins was firmly in his element reciting Joycean poetry as part of the Bloomsday celebrations.
Hosting a group of less than 20 scholars and artists in Áras an Uachtaráin, Mr Higgins received the Tundish Award, which is given by an informal grouping of Irish intellectuals as a means of “quietly celebrating the genius of James Joyce”. It is often awarded to those who have made a contribution to the arts.
The Áras ceremony was one of the smaller Bloomsday events in Dublin, on a day which sees Joyce devotees retrace and celebrate the steps of Leopold Bloom across the city.
Mr Higgins received a calligraphy inscription of one of his favourite Joyce poems, Ecce Puer. Guests heard the poem had been inscribed on vellum using pure carbon ink.
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Actor Stephen Rea read an excerpt from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, from which the Tundish Award derives its name.
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Speaking afterwards the President referenced the important cultural impact of Field Day Theatre company, set up by the late playwright Brian Friel and Mr Rea.
“It was like a flash of lightning in Irish intellectual circles, a kind of flash of lightning accompanied by much thunder,” which came afterwards, Mr Higgins said, and could be “unpredictable”.
In recent days the President’s comments describing the housing crisis as “our great, great, great failure” caused political controversy.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said on Thursday it was “right that the President is free to comment on matters”. However, he said it was “always much easier to describe a problem and to make pronouncements about it than it is to actually come up with solutions and implement them”.
But there was no return to any off-the-cuff comments on such matters in the Phoenix Park on Thursday.
Mr Higgins paid tribute to Ulysses as a “daring, seminal and challenging work” that brought the reader into the “mind and thoughts of an ordinary man as he ambles through his native city”.
He said the book “remains a work that challenges us, puzzles us and continues to leave itself open to new insight and re-interpretation”.
The President spoke about visiting Joyce’s grave in Fluntern, Zürich, Switzerland, in 2018. He recalled a discussion with Stephen Joyce, the grandson and last direct descendant of the author, who died in 2020, about his wish to have one of Joyce’s poems inscribed at the site.
The chosen poem was A Flower Given to My Daughter, Mr Higgins told those present, before producing a small pocketbook and reading the short poem to the group. The President added he had “contacted the authorities” in Zürich about having an inscription with the work installed at the grave and was waiting for a response.
