Hopkins Festival and new Irish President
Michael D. Higgins Uactaran na h-Eireann
On July 23 rd , the 24 th Hopkins Festival was launched by Michael D. Higgins. Later that night, Michael D. adjourned to Con Cummins's Pub to join international poets in the Festival Club, with his poems and writings. We were honored that night to have Michael D. poet, politician and human rights activist. .
Michael D. was touched by this visit. Not only did he open the Festival with his usual panache, but the event rekindled memories of the time his father had spent as a lodger above Con Cummins's bar in Main Street, Newbridge, in the 1920s.
In a short conversation with Con, Michael D. revealed that his father had become involved in the anti-Treaty faction in Munster and had been detained by the Free State forces in an internment camp in the Curragh County Kildare. After his release in about 1924, his father worked with a tailor in Newbridge. He found lodgings during his stay in Newbridge at Con Cummins's Pub.
His stay was brief and left no mark on the official record of Newbridge but there is no doubt that the ninth President-elect of the Republic of Ireland is conscious of his father's connection with the town of Newbridge.
The Hopkins Festival Committee were honored and enthused by President Michael D.'s visit to Hopkins's Kildare in July 2011.
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