Michael D. Higgins
The president who served Ireland for fourteen years was Galway's TD for a quarter of a century and twice its mayor. Michael D. Higgins came to the city as a mature student at UCG, chaired the Fianna Fáil branch there in 1966 and switched almost at once to Labour, lost in 1969 and 1973, and entered the Seanad that year. From 1981 the Dáil, from 1993 the first arts ministry, and from 11 November 2011 the Áras.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
Martie Swart, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Ollscoil na Gaillimhe - University of Galway, Galway City Hall on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
Galway politics
Higgins was a senator from 1973 to 1977 and 1983 to 1987 and a TD for Galway West in 1981 to 1982 and from 1987 to 2011, Mayor of Galway in 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991. In the Fianna Fáil and Labour government of 1993 he became the first Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, a post he held until 1997; TG4 and Raidió na Gaeltachta's growth belong to that era. He was president of the Labour Party from 2003 and its foreign affairs spokesman, worked against the Iraq war and defended the Gaza flotilla in the Dáil.
The presidency
Nominated by Labour, he won in 2011 promising one term, was inaugurated at Dublin Castle on 11 November 2011 with humanist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim elements, and asked to have his 250,000 euro salary cut. He stood again in 2018 and won with 56 per cent on the first count, 822,566 votes, the largest personal mandate in the history of the state, and left office in November 2025; in his first interview afterwards, with the Galway Advertiser in February 2026, he proposed letting citizens challenge legislation in the courts. A poet and broadcaster as well, he holds the Grand Cross of El Salvador's Order of José Matías Delgado, awarded after he returned in 2013 to the country where he had investigated the El Mozote massacre 31 years earlier, and Peru's Order of the Sun. His wife Sabina Coyne, an actress from Cloonrane near Ballindine, grew up on a farm in a family of seven. The model on this page pins the university and the city he represented.
Questions people ask
Was Michael D. Higgins Mayor of Galway?
How long was Michael D. Higgins president?
Where is Michael D. Higgins from?
Written from Wikipedia, "Michael D. Higgins" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.