Hopkins Festival and new
Irish President, Michael D. Higgins
President Michael D. with Desmond Egan July 2011
On Julty 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 fatehr 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 tha this 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 County Kildare. After his release, his father got work in a tailor's in Newbridge and had lodged for a short time at Cummins's about 1924.
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 2011.
25th Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival July 2012
Hans Palsson and Classical Concert at 25th Hopkins Festival
President Elect and his links with Hopkins Festival
