Elaine Loughlin: Just like his office, Michael D Higgins's mind is overflowing with ideas

But the more you look, the more you see rows of soldiers emerge surrounding a symbolic white horse; the outline of a woman appears bending low to comfort an infant; and behind the chaos of war, another layer in the hopeful brightness of a gable wall.

Entering President Michael D Higgins’ study is a similar, overwhelming experience.

Towers of books, 15 volumes high, perch on small side tables and there is more reading material stacked on four yellow armchairs at the other side of the room.

His wall of bookshelves has long been filled, but fighting for space are pictures and paintings, many of his beloved dogs; a framed photo of his friend and Trócaire activist Sally O’Neill Sanchez, who died in 2019; a smattering of cards from artist Mick Mulcahy, whose drawings appear on a number of the President’s poetry books; and a postcard featuring fellow wordsmith Michael Longley.

“I don’t change the place to meet people for the very simple reason that all my papers — I do know where everything is — and the books I’m using or whatever, they’re all in this room, and it’s effectively where I do all of the preparatory work for speeches and for papers,” Higgins says, admitting that it sometimes causes “mild arguments”.

The white horse among the chaos is the President’s desk.

Like a stage lit by multiple standing lamps, it overflows with yet more books, papers, and some crystal awards. On top of a slanting pile of folders sits a card featuring a dog and the words ‘You are loved so much’. There are two telephones and a computer screen — the keyboard, it can only be assumed, is hiding under yet another volume of documents.

“In a way, it suits me as well,” he continues, “because when I’m talking to people about the different topics, they can see the materials that generated the particular line I’m taking and how I’m sourcing.”

And there is just so much to take in.

Aside from the books, a considerable amount of the bottle-green flocked wallpaper is covered. 

A picture of himself and Sabina — the couple will be 50 years married in July — hangs below a black-and-white photograph of Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher singing into one mic. On the other side of the room among yet more books is an easel holding a graphic-style drawing of James Connolly wounded in the GPO, while above the marble fireplace is an oil painting of Noel Brown bought by Higgins back in 1979 for £200. It is obscured slightly by a number of items, including a St Brigid’s cross.

Higgins may be 83 years old but, just like his office, his mind is bursting with ideas and arguments and he is keen to speak about a multitude of topics from the ecological consequences of current farming practices; to America’s stance on Israel; the future of Palestine; the difficulties facing the UN, and his own depiction in a series of highly popular children’s books.

On that, Higgins says as someone who has been campaigning and “standing outside the walls of churches” since his 20s, he is used to life in the public eye. But he adds: “I’m quite overwhelmed myself about the letters I get from children.

“For example, it took me nearly an hour to extract myself from Dalymount Park because of all the youngsters coming over to talk,” he says of his attendance at the recent historic match between Bohemians and Palestine.

While the highly popular children’s books have nothing to do with him, he did suggest to author Peter Donnelly that he make a contribution to the Capuchin Day Centre from the profits made. 

He continues: “Then there are all the tea cosies. People were bringing the tea cosies to Bruce Springsteen. I mean, that’s an existential one, I don’t understand it at all. I am not offended by any of it, I am a bit overwhelmed sometimes about it.

“I look at it with a kind of wry look, at my existence as a curiosity in a way.

“The price people have to pay is they have to listen to the speeches,” he says before bursting into laughter.

Farming and food security

The myriad of literature currently surrounding him indicates that global food security is a topic occupying the President’s mind.

Picking up what is clearly a well-read Glenn Denning book on the subject, he says: “Sometimes I get stuck on a particular book or perspective and I find that when I come back to it I have all these Post-its in it.”

The President, who will be awarded the UN’s Agricola Medal on June 7 for his efforts in advancing the cause of global food security, poverty alleviation, and nutrition, has been tireless in highlighting this as an issue that is inextricably linked to many of the globe’s crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss and conflict.

“It has two sides to it because you have the shortages in the area where people are suffering from different levels — famine at the extreme and then gross malnutrition — but also you have, of course, the wastage of food and the consumption of food in such a manner in the western world... in industrialised countries where you have huge issues of obesity,” he says.

A dependence on imported grain is a significant issue for developing nations, but the dependence Irish farmers now have on foreign markets is also a problem, and he has no hesitation in hitting out on modern systems of agriculture.

“When I think back, in many, many cases, we paid a very high price, a very high ecological price for, in fact, relying on an American model of agriculture being imposed by the European Union, and we are now paying a terrible price for it,” says the President.

We will not be able to sustain farming as a relationship to the land and so forth, without directly paying for people to be in farming. 

It is not lost on him that his great-grandfather set up the first creamery co-operative in 1890 in Cork, but he still is quick to call out the “contradictions in what we do”.

“We have been fairly good at producing dairy products, but I can see the contradictions in our position where we are the largest supplier of baby formula to China,” he says, before speaking of the significant benefits of breastfeeding.

He recently met a group in the Áras who were “anxious to stop distortion by formula companies” and is concerned about the “misinformation” mothers may receive around the perceived necessity of formula and when should a child go on solids.

Returning to the global distribution and production of food, he says hunger and food inequality is not an issue the West wants to fully engage with.

Higgins is against a model which sees multinational organisations benefit and wants a ground-up approach to farming, which takes advantage of more holistic and sustainable practices.

“At the minute, there are two companies that control all the seeds that are planted in Africa. Ten years ago, it was seven companies, but the seven companies have amalgamated into two companies,” he says, pointing out that large tracts of land have been bought by China and India.

Referencing his attendance at the Dakar summit on food sovereignty and resilience last year, he says: “I’m the only white face in the photographs and there were over 54 heads of state and over 70 ministers.

“My view, for example, is a minority view of the European Union.”

Criticism of Biden’s position on Israel

Food security is not the only view Higgins holds that is at odds with his fellow world leaders.

Images of Joe Biden meeting Higgins in the same fantastically disorganised study caught the public’s imagination and went viral during the US president’s visit to Ireland last year, but Higgins is now quick to criticise Biden.

He is “deeply, deeply” disappointed by Biden’s stance on Israel, especially given his deep links to and understanding of Ireland, a country whose people were suppressed and had to fight for recognition.

“I can’t understand it.”

Referring to the “gratuitous attack” on the International Criminal Court, he again says: “I just don’t understand it.”

“It was unnecessary, uncalled for and is certainly not helpful.

“The International Criminal Court is an important development and needs our support, and indeed it had been criticised in the fact that it was holding back from issuing decisions that might have upset the great powers.”

The Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, and the ongoing brutal bombardment of Gaza, has placed a renewed focus on the Middle East, but Higgins’ interest in finding a path to peace stems back decades.

He visited the West Bank and Gaza many times, including in 2005 when he was part of a EU delegation that produced a report and recommendations, many of which still remain unaddressed.

The intergenerational aspect of the violence and hate passed down through the generations is concerning, with the descendants of those evicted from their homes in the Nakba now becoming members of Hamas.

The lived experience of one mother in Palestine has stuck with him: “She discussed with me the difficulties she was having with a teenage son who wanted to buy a gun. The way she put it to me was ‘his grandfather fired stones, that’s Intifada 1’, and she said ‘now his grandchild wants to buy a gun.’ That was when I was there all those years ago.”

The trickle of life-saving aid now getting into Gaza and, worse still, the targeting of trucks carrying food destined for a people facing famine, is a cause of deep distress for Higgins.

“If you think of over 30 children under two years of age dying from dehydration or from malnutrition, almost in public in front of the television screens of the world, and if you look at a mob surrounding lorries and tearing out the food and throwing it on the ground with cameras there, and nobody prevented them from doing this.

“This is just scandalous.”

Unlike in Northern Ireland, he says, there has been a lack of dialogue in the Middle East, which now must start.

“You arrived at the Good Friday Agreement after a very long process in which there were external bodies and friends who took an interest so that in the times when the principals couldn’t agree to be in the same building as each other, the generation of text was happening all the time.

“You had text to invite people back to discuss. This has never happened [with Israel and Palestine].”

He adds: “The nettle people might not want to grasp, if you’re in fact actually talking about what is the limit of a Palestinian state, and people speak about the 1967 borders and international law, but what is to be the Israeli state, and what is the end of the ambition of the Israeli state? What about the Golan Heights?

“Here is the deep sadness I have in relation to when I see the statements coming from the White House. Now, remember what the alternative is in relation to it is — Mr Trump’s son-in-law has said what a desirable opportunity is going to be there in Gaza if the people can be persuaded to leave and the place cleaned up. These are the options.”

Higgins, does however, see some cause for hope in the popularity of political leader Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted and imprisoned for his role in deadly attacks against Israel.

The inclusion of Barghouti on the list put forward by Hamas for release during recent rounds of ceasefire negotiations, was viewed as significant as he is viewed as a possible ‘consensus figure’.

Higgins believes Barghouti has the “capacity” to bring people with him and to embrace a two-state solution.

“The great advantage of Barghouti, from the stuff he is writing and that, is that he has the capacity to have traction on the ground at home.

“One of the thing that is to his credit, he’s been encouraging the Palestinian prisoners to read and he is encouraging them to be aware of the history.”

‘There is something to this room’

And so what next for the President himself?

Serving as a politician and then President has allowed him to meet many people from across all sectors of society, and this has sustained him.

“I have been happiest with people,” he says.

After suffering a mild stroke in February, which impacted his left side, Higgins still needs the aid of a stick, but he makes it clear that he wants to be “back to shaking hands with football teams soon”.

Of his longer-term plan, Higgins says: “It’s going to be very difficult for me to leave the space.

“It’s going to be very, very sad when I move off, I would like to think that there is something to this room,” the President says, looking around at the glorious chaos.