Every day’s going to be Bloomsday.
Ireland may be on its way to elect a gay president after the first opinion poll in the race showed Senator David Norris, a Dublin-based gay activist, well-ahead.
… The size of the Norris lead is surprising. The Joyce scholar and gay rights campaigner is an independent senator representing Trinity College in the Irish senate and has never been considered a candidate for national office…
A protestant, he was actually born in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1944 but came to Ireland a few years later…
[Norris] has also played a major role in popularizing Bloomsday, now celebrated on June 16th every year.
If they want to go even further and elect a Jew and a Joyce freak, there’s always UD.
September 25th, 2010 at 11:48AM
It is sometimes claimed, because of his Sephardic ancestry, that Robert Erskine Childress was a president of Ireland with Jewish roots…
An interesting character…
Don’t know whether he was a Joyce nut like UD.
September 25th, 2010 at 2:31PM
At this point the Irish are likely to elect anybody not standing on a Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, or, perhaps, Labour platform. Norris is perfect in that regard, with a pleasing added poke in the eye to the Catholic Church at no additional charge. Also, it was Erskine Childers, not Childress: his father of the same name was the author of The Riddle of the Sands, and got himself topped in the Irish Civil War.
September 26th, 2010 at 3:59PM
Thanks for correction, Colin. I got the name wrong AND the father and son confused…
Another little irony, Childers died before a firing squad because of a revolver that he had in his possession, a gun that he had received as a gift from his former friend Michael Collins before they parted ways.
Erin Go Bragh!