President Catherine Connolly visited anti-war activist Margaretta D’Arcy on her deathbed in November, with D’Arcy’s dying request being for her to pass the Occupied Territories Bill and to get foreign troops out of Shannon Airport.
President Connolly was speaking in Galway on Tuesday at a Nollaig na mBan commemoration event for Ms D’Arcy who died in November, aged 91.
Known as the Guantánamo Granny, Ms D’Arcy was imprisoned twice in 2014 after scaling the perimeter fence at Shannon Airport as part of an anti-war protest.
During those periods of incarceration, she was visited by Sabina Higgins, wife for former president Michael D Higgins, who also attended Tuesday’s event.
President Connolly’s visit to D’Arcy took place days after she was sworn in as Ireland’s 10th head of State on November 11th.
“I had the privilege of visiting her in hospital on her deathbed,” she said.
“I came to Merlin Park Hospital for a private visit. But very quickly as President you realise that nothing is private, which is a challenge in itself.
“I very foolishly tried to make small talk with her. Anyone who knows Margaretta knows that she doesn’t do small talk – she certainly didn’t do it with me, and I’m not the best at it.”
President Connolly said that after asking a number of questions, she realised she should stop.
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“So, I just sat there and held her hand. And then she told me [to] pass the Occupied Territories Bill, [get the] troops out of Shannon, and her third point was to stop the corporatisation of the world.
“I hasten to add that I am quoting, regardless of what my own opinion might be. But they were the three things that she passed on to me, as a challenge for me to continue. That challenge belongs to all of us.”
Today’s event was organised by film-maker and activist Lelia Doolan and Ms D’Arcy’s son Finn Arden. It was hosted by poet Sarah Clancy, one of the Irish citizens onboard the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israeli authorities last October.
Speaking at the event, representatives of Aosdána, the artists’ association, said it would seek to establish a national day in Ireland to celebrate artists imprisoned for their work across the world.
The initiative, originally suggested by Ms D’Arcy, will be officially announced in April.
Speaking of their relationship, President Connolly said Ms D’Arcy was a “walking contradiction” who “raged against injustice and raged against the normalisation of war”.
“Let me tell you, I rage too and so do you, and we need action,” she said. “What are we going to do about that? How are we going to use our power, as a man or a woman, to say it is not normal to have war? It is abnormal. Peace is normal.”