{"id":45934,"date":"2025-09-05T20:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T20:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45934\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T20:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T20:07:08","slug":"michael-flatley-and-joanna-donnelly-say-they-will-not-seek-nominations-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45934\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Flatley and Joanna Donnelly say they will not seek nominations \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Flatley<\/a> has abandoned his attempt to enter the presidential election<\/a> race, saying he will instead prioritise his family and health. <\/p>\n

In July, Mr Flatley\u2019s barrister told a High Court hearing that the Lord of the Dance choreographer, who was the first male lead in Riverdance, was actively considering running to succeed Michael D Higgins<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, a serious campaign never followed and he announced on Friday that he would not be seeking nominations for next month\u2019s election. <\/p>\n

In doing so, Mr Flatley became the third high-profile name in less than 48 hours to announce that their presidential campaigns were at an end.<\/p>\n

Former Met \u00c9ireann<\/a> and RT\u00c9<\/a> meteorologist Joanna Donnelly<\/a> had earlier on Friday dropped out of the race, saying she was \u201cwholly unprepared\u201d for such a campaign. <\/p>\n

\"JoannaJoanna Donnelly said she was ‘wholly unprepared’ to contest a presidential election campaign. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

It emerged on Thursday night that former taoiseach Bertie Ahern had also parked his hopes<\/a> of being elected into \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in. He said he believed he could be a good president but did not have the support of Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s leadership to run. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a former leader of the party I respect Fianna F\u00e1il, its legacy, far too much to even consider that Independent idea. I\u2019ve always been a Fianna F\u00e1il person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il on Friday night confirmed former Dublin Gaelic football manager Jim Gavin and MEP Billy Kelleher had received the required number of nominations to proceed to the party\u2019s candidate selection process. A secret ballot is to be held among the party\u2019s TDs, MEPs and Senators next Tuesday to choose its nominee.<\/p>\n

In a post on Facebook on Friday, Mr Flatley said: \u201cI have decided not to run for President of Ireland at this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am honoured by the encouragement and support I\u2019ve received from so many people across Ireland over recent weeks, but I must put my family and my health first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Flatley concluded his short statement by saying he felt he could \u201cbetter serve the Irish people by continuing my work promoting Ireland and Irish culture globally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Donnelly announced earlier this week<\/a> that she wanted to run to be president. She wrote to local authorities seeking the support of councillors to secure a nomination to appear on the ballot paper.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Radio Review: The longer Joanna Donnelly\u2019s Drivetime interview goes on, the more we worryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, in an Instagram post on Friday, Ms Donnelly confirmed she was no longer seeking to be nominated.<\/p>\n

She thanked people for \u201call the kind words of support and encouragement over the last few days\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, since Tuesday I\u2019ve been talking to people with vastly more experience in this type of campaign and I have come to see just how wholly unprepared I am,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I still see myself as having the qualities that I would like to see in our next Uachtar\u00e1in na h\u00c9ireann, I was naive to think that I was up to the challenges of the undertaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think it\u2019s best if I withdraw my request for a nomination at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Donnelly said on Tuesday she had made the decision to seek a nomination after quite a number of friends and others had suggested it to her. She said at first she thought it was an \u201cinsane\u201d idea but, after reflection, she had come to the conclusion it was something that could be pursued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Flatley has abandoned his attempt to enter the presidential election race, saying he will instead prioritise his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,30116,11,12,15,16,4778,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-45934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-joanna-donnelly","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-michael-flatley","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}