So we are not, after all, going to be spared a presidential election: it was all too good to be true, writes Kevin Myers.
Even aside from the absolute certainty that - short of my own standing - we can't possibly get a better President, the prospect of yet another election, with all the vacuous deceits and meretricious vapouring that characterise Irish political debate, is about as dispiriting as finding a rat in the rice pudding.
We know this: when it comes to presidential elections, all things being equal, Fianna Fáil will always win. The presidential election isn't about policies or even personalities, but is instead a statement of tribal identity. The predominant tribe in the Republic is Fianna Fáil, to whose myths most Irish people subscribe. That some might regret this - and I certainly do - is irrelevant. Fianna Fáil is the dominant tribe, and that's that.
Eamon de Valera nearly lost out to Tom O'Higgins in 1966, but that was largely because after half-a-century of the old curmudgeon, the electorate was thoroughly sick and tired of him. And, of course, the Mary Robinson election victory was made possible only by Fianna Fáil falling on its sword in the most spectacular fashion: though we didn't know it then, it was the first of the wheeling, screaming flock of Charlie chickens coming home to roost with fowl pest. Yes, I know: mixed metaphor.
So Enda Kenny is entirely right to want to avoid a presidential election. It would only do for him what Ian Duncan Smith's speech at the Conservative Party conference managed for him. Firstly, there isn't a suitable Fine Gael presidential candidate, unless they're thinking of getting Kevin O'Higgins's bones to run. Secondly, his own position is so weak that a presidential rout would leave Fine Gael looking like downtown Monrovia. A Fine Gael candidate then couldn't even get elected as correspondence secretary for the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Guild of Former Blueshirts, Bertie Ahern would remain in power as long as Fidel Castro, and Enda Kenny would officially become Ian Duncan Kenny.
So why bother having an election when it's a foregone conclusion that President McAleese is going to win, and deservedly? Her opinions are not my opinions, to be sure; but she has come to behave with the gravitas, public reticence and discreet enthusiasm of a constitutional monarch - which is indeed what she is, but through elective rather than obstetric means.
She is unquestionably the most popular and unifying President in the history of the office. Moreover, a great deal of her work has actually been outside the strictly defined role of the constitutional monarch, and has never been publicly disclosed.
Almost as important as her unsung, unseen endeavours have been those of her husband Martin, who has been discreetly performing all sorts of secret diplomacy with different people and groups in the North. His achievements have depended on utter confidentiality, both because of his own reticence and because of predictable Northern sensitivities.
So merely because we are constitutionally entitled to have an election doesn't mean we should have one. Our President is outstandingly good at the job, and clearly enjoys the life, which suggests that, as a little girl, she was struck by lightning and her cerebral cortex frazzled. This is less unusual than you might think, for society functions according to differing degrees of lightning-strike dementia. We need undertakers, proctologists, steeplejacks, miners, drains-clearers, dentists, gynaecologists and county councillors, all of whose callings require a certain amount of brain damage.
But none requires the amount of disturbed grey matter that goes into the making of an Irish President. Being President of this country has none of the consolations of the US presidency. John F. Kennedy, for example, would hourly bundle a passing secretary into a broom cupboard, the term broom-handle taking on a whole new meaning during his occupancy. I somehow don't think they go in for that kind of caper in the Áras; no, not even in Dev's time.
For it's up at dawn in the Park to preview the day. Nine a.m., and it's a beaming welcome to the Grimethorpe Rissole-Makers at Borrisokane Cuisine Week. Ten a.m., and cheery smiles galore for the opening of the Drogheda Snail Derby. Eleven a.m., a beatific countenance for the launch of the Mullingar Heifer Annual Jamboree. Noon, and it's soupy, compassionate time at the Inishvickillane refuge for homeless whale-calves. One p.m., and now the President has to wipe away tears of feigned mirth at the Ballinrobe Comedy Festival, before donning black and looking heroically inconsolable at the state funeral of Shaun Skin-the-Peeler O'Flaherty, the last survivor of the Battle of Widow McCormack's Cottage, so tragically struck down in his prime, aged 178.
Then it's time to gaze, entranced, at the opening of yet another arts and crafts centre in Connemara, with badly-carved wooden things, pseudo-Celtic mugs and place-mats resembling knitted porridge. Next, an ecumenical (naturally) service at the newly renovated Church of Ireland chapel at Sludge, Co Offaly, hosted by the rector, Heather, and her partner Madge, before the President rushes off to mimic fascination while the manager of a Belmullet fish-canning plant excitedly describes the export potential of powdered herring-eyes.
Then pell-mell back to the Áras to receive the Ambassador from Gogoland, who spends two animated hours describing the role of the subjunctive in his native language, and another hour on the iniquities of the criminal usurpers in neighbouring Nogoland, who misuse the subjunctive barbarously: bright smiles throughout.
So, Madam, you're extremely good at the job; but more to the point, you're welcome to it. In other words, relax: yes, this is an announcement of my non-candidature.