John Dolan: My first presidential election - but I reckon I’ll spoil my vote

Next January will mark the 25th anniversary of my emigration to Ireland, on a Ryanair plane from England alongside my wife-to-be, and with our two rather shaken-up cats in the hold.

Straight away, as a British citizen resident here, I was able to vote in the local, European, and general elections. But I was denied the right to vote in referenda and presidential elections - that is a privilege only applicable to Irish citizens.

Over the years, as I put down roots here, I ruminated on whether to apply to become an official citizen of the republic, but I partly felt it would be a betrayal of my homeland, and partly was scared off by the fee and bureaucracy involved.

Brexit in 2016 changed all that.

Overnight, an Irish passport gained in value and popularity - and given my wife and now four children had one, I developed a fear of missing out... and an even bigger fear of queueing for hours at airports while they were waved through the EU corridor and started their holiday on time.

Thus, in early 2020, after a year-long process, and after parting with €278 - plus €100 to post two long-form birth certs - I officially became an Irish citizen, on a reduced rate thanks to my Irish granny, and copped an Irish passport.

Life as a bona fide Irish passport-holder got off to an inauspicious start when the pandemic duly arrived and put the kibosh on travel for years.

But now, it is the only passport I own, having allowed my UK one to expire - and I also have the right to vote in referenda and presidential elections. Yippee!

Sadly, I appear to have got off to an inauspicious start here too.

On the referenda front, after years of looking on from the sidelines while really lively and juicy debates took place between two hot-headed sides, I was presented with my first chance to vote on them last year - and, boy, what a dud it was.

One of the referenda was on whether to “expand the constitutional definition of family to include durable relationships outside marriage”, and the other asked the public if we wanted to replace a reference to women’s “life within the home” and “mothers’ duties in the home” with a gender-neutral article on supporting care within the family.

It was confusing, and there was a mass of opposition to both questions, while the government didn’t seem to try very hard to explain what on earth we were being asked.

On the surface, removing the sexist language of Éamon de Valera’s Constitution should have been a no-brainer, but there was a lot of talk about unintended repercussions and it was hard to know who to believe.

I mean, we’re citizens, not bloody lawyers.

I never waste a chance to vote, but I genuinely cannot recall which way I went on either of those forgettable referenda last year when I turned up in the booth. That’s how forgettable that experience was.

The end result at the polls: A turn-out of a paltry 44% and two fingers from the electorate on the two referenda.

And now, dear reader, I am facing into my first presidential election as a voter next Friday - and am feeling ripped off all over again!

Was it something I said?

The president may have no actual power, but they are an important figurehead of your and my nation, yet this entire process has brought shame on many of our politicians.

The end result of months of farce, indecision, and shameful blocking of intriguing contenders, is that we have two candidates left standing in Catherine Connolly and Heather Humphreys.

And, with all due respect, they are, to my mind, and that of a good many people, the equivalent of those two referenda - answers to questions which nobody had asked.

Two career politicians - one from each side of the divide, nominally, - but both very much part of the establishment.

Two decent, likeable women, it’s true, but neither appear to have the charisma and oratory talents to unite the nation and move the country in times of joy and despair.

Had the two main government parties not contrived to block a handful of other people - and particularly non-politicians - the contest would have been far more engaging, even though Connolly or Humphreys may still have prevailed. Instead, we have been left to watch dull TV and radio debates that come across more as party political broadcasts.

Bizarrely, most of the questions the two women are asked venture into territory - Gaza, housing, neutrality - on which the President has far less say than even the likes of us ordinary voters. The President is there merely to parrot the line of the government of the day.

Fair enough, it’s hard to know what else you can ask the two presidential candidates when they are career politicians - but that underlines the point that a Maria Steen, or indeed a Bob Geldof, or a Tony Holohan, would have brought a different aspect to the campaigning and to the entire debate. I’m not even sure I would have voted for any of them - perhaps Geldof - but their absence wrecked any semblance of a race with which to engage.

Although he dropped the ball on the presidential issue big time for Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin was right about one thing - the public were ready to vote a non-politician into the Áras this time round. That opportunity has been denied us.

The country I left, the UK, rarely has referenda - because it has no written Constitution - and does not have presidential elections because the monarch is the head of state - and given the events of the last year in Ireland, I am tempted to wonder if they have it right!

So, what am I going to do on Friday?

Firstly, I will turn up at the booths, and so should you. That is the only advice I can offer up - what you do in there is entirely up to you.

What I am minded to do - unless something changes drastically in the next six days - is to spoil my vote.

I will make it clear that I have turned up and exercised my right, but that I do not favour either of the options presented on the paper.

I intend to do this as a signal to the government that we need to address the way the contenders for this presidency have been selected.

I knows this tactic has been associated with right-wing commentators upset that Maria Steen was not nominated, but that is not a reason for people who consider themselves more centrist to avoid doing it.

If enough people spoil their vote - and especially if the turn-out is as low as feared - the message will be heard loud and clear.

Then, next Saturday, no matter who wins, I will gladly get behind them, because they will be the President of our country, as voted through on a democratic ballot. As a citizen, that has to be a given. None of this ‘Not my President’ malarkey.

Many of our politicians may have abdicated their duties to the nation with their actions in recent months, but us citizens can still demonstrate a maturity and respect for this country’s institutions that has been found sadly lacking in them.