On The Town:'You got a haircut," exclaimed Declan Kiberdas he greeted Michael D Higginsat the launch of the Labour Party TD's book in the National Library this week. The groomed locks Higgins sported at the celebration certainly seemed a million miles away from thewild and tousled grey tresses adorning the front cover of his book, Causes for Concern: Irish Politics, Culture and Society.
Beside a poster of that very cover, a large sign featuring the words "Work in Progress", referring to the building programme currently being carried out at the venue, seemed a fitting allusion to the volume, which contains lectures, addresses, poems and articles Higgins has been producing for the last three decades.
Along with what appeared to be a few lost tourists looking for the Yeats exhibition currently showing at the library, many of Higgins's colleagues popped across the Dáil car park for the occasion. Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, Independent Senators David Norrisand Shane Ross, and TDs Joe Costello, Brendan Howlinand Liz McManuswere all in attendance.
The Dublin launch of the book had been preceded by one in the west, in Kenny's Art Gallery, Galway, which, according to Liberties Press director Seán O'Keeffe, had seen a similarly healthy turnout. Actor Paul Meade, and his fellow Gúna Nua theatre company director David Parnell, came to the Dublin leg, as did literary agent Jonathan Williamsand Fergal Tobinof Gill &Macmillan.
"I hope you enjoy the book," said Higgins, who spent much of the evening perched on a chair signing copies of his work for a queue that snaked around the rotunda of the National Library. "And that you have arguments about it, and that once you have read it we can have a conversation about it."
Kiberd described Higgins, his friend of some 35 years, as remaining "forever young" and as "one of the most successful ministers in the history of the State".
"Whenever Michael D had the choice between saving the world and the Labour Party," joked Kiberd, "he always took the easy option and stepped on a plane."
• Causes for Concern: Irish Politic s,Culture and Society, by Michael D Higgins, is published by Liberties Press, 125