The political establishment has a history of obstructing presidential aspirants, writes Jim Duffy
It was 1938. Alfie Byrne, Dublin's first citizen as long-serving Lord Mayor, dreamt of becoming the State's first citizen as President of Ireland. His move threw the political establishment into a panic. De Valera aborted plans to put his Tánaiste, Seán T O'Kelly, up for the presidency, convinced that even the popular Seán T would be trounced by Alfie, ironically one of Seán T's oldest and closest friends.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together, in an unprecedented piece of co-operation, plotted to shaft Alfie. A cross party committee debated possible agreed candidates, including Gaelic scholar Lord Ashbourne and the tenor, Count John McCormack (the latter ineligible because of his American citizenship), while Austrian-Irish politician Count Taaffe announced his interest through a Liverpool newspaper. When Fine Gael suggested Senator Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League, de Valera jumped at the idea of making his old friend president. All sides felt guilty at how Hyde had been driven from the Senate in 1925 by a smear campaign waged by the Catholic Truth Society and some bishops who said the Protestant Hyde was "pro-divorce".
Picking Hyde would also disprove claims made when the office was created that the President of Ireland could become a Hitler-style dictator. Few could imagine the inoffensive Hyde as being an Irish Adolf. Alfie was blocked and Douglas given the presidency.
By 1945 eighty-something Hyde, paralysed by a stroke that had nearly killed him and surrounded by fictitious rumours of senility, was not fit to run again. Dev was desperate to get Seán T, seen as the bishops' spy, out of his cabinet. Kicking him upstairs to the presidency was the obvious solution.
But one man stood in the way, a respected republican, the Irish Republic's unaccredited "ambassador" in the US in the 1920s, Patrick McCartan.
McCartan went around the local councils seeking a nomination, only to find Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour all blocking him. With Seán T apparently destined to an unopposed election, Fine Gael and Labour, unbeknown to each other, nominated candidates through the Oireachtas to force an election; Labour nominated McCartan "in the interests of democracy" while making it clear that no member of the party was allowed to support him in the campaign.
McCartan remained the only Independent nominated until Mary Robinson, supported by Labour and the Workers Party, ran in 1990. Over the years others went public to proclaim their interest in the office, even if they didn't actively seek a nomination. Eoin (The Pope) O'Mahony announced his interest twice. McCartan tried again to run, but got no nomination. Labour's Michael O'Leary suggested that the party contest the 1966 presidential election. Had it done so, its transfers would have ensured that Fine Gael's candidate, Tom O'Higgins (who was only 10,000 votes behind him on the day out of a poll of nearly one million) would have defeated President de Valera.
In 1972, desperate to stop O'Higgins, who was expected to run again for the presidency in 1973, Taoiseach Jack Lynch suggested to Fine Gael that Chief Justice Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh be an agreed candidate. Fine Gael said no, only to see O'Higgins sensationally beaten by Fianna Fáil's Erskine Childers. Childers had reluctantly agreed to run when Lynch's and de Valera's first choice, Frank Aiken, refused in protest at Fianna Fáil's decision to allow Charles Haughey to be a candidate in the 1973 general election - he had quit the Dáil for the same reason. When President Childers died in 1974, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil again swapped names looking for an agreed candidate and came up with Rita Childers, widow of the late president.
But a farcical mix-up caused by a minister's mishearing of a journalist's question led to the accidental public confirmation of Mrs Childers' nomination. Fianna Fáil thought they were being set up and backed off backing Mrs Childers, suggesting Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh again. The National Coalition agreed and Cearbhall became president, without a vote being cast. When Cearbhall in 1976 resigned over a disgraceful attack on him by a coalition minister, after an internal battle (Haugheyites had proposed Joseph Brennan) Fianna Fáil proposed Paddy Hillery for the presidency and the coalition did not oppose him. He may have only wanted one term but when he tried to retire in 1983 Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour ganged up on him and, through co-ordinated appeals, forced him to take the job again, unopposed, in the process killing off rumours of a Seán MacBride candidacy. And 1990 saw Carmencita Hederman and Noel Browne's interest in the presidency killed off with Mary Robinson's entry into the race.
So Labour's Michael D. Higgins and the Green's Eamon Ryan are in company as the latest wannabe presidents to find themselves blocked. But the race isn't over yet. In theory at least, Dana could still get the four local council nominations. Or she could in theory be nominated by 20 Oireachtas members: those who agree with her conservative views, those who want to see her raise her Eurosceptic views on the EU constitution in the campaign, and those who just oppose her shafting by the main parties.
The Independents could still find a candidate they all agree to nominate, David Norris perhaps. With rumours of a court action over how the legal process of nomination functioned, anything could happen.
And don't forget, as a one-term president, Mary Robinson could always nominate herself. The golden rule of Irish presidential elections is to "expect the unexpected". Who knows what surprises could still happen?
Jim Duffy is a political commentator