Short stories don't cut it as Mickileen Láidir proves he is bigger than the rest

So, we have our first male Irish President since 2nd December 1990 when the late Paddy Hillery vacated the office. And some would say that's a good thing. How happy we all were when we elected our first female President (Mary Robinson), and we were so happy with that we decided to elect a second woman - Mary McAleese - to the office (in 1997), giving her an uncontested second go at the gig in 2004. Fair is fair. It was their turn. We had had Hyde, O'Kelly, De Valera, Childers, " Dálaigh and Hillery (all men). It was fitting that 'the fairer sex' would get the chance to inspect all those guards of honour and host the tea parties for millions of community workers at the Áras. The heat of the election is now past but it is relevant to raise a number of issues which ran through the campaign. One of these was discrimination. There certainly was what can be known as "shortism" (discrimination against vertically challenged persons), "poetism" (discrimination against persons who like to recite verses from Homer in a high-pitched voice while soaking in the Presidential bath), "champagneism" (discrimination against persons who like the bubbly stuff), "champagnerhymeism" (discrimination against persons who like to recite poetry and quaff the bubbly stuff while doing so), "Westism" (discrimination against anyone west of the Shannon because the rest of us feel we know Cromwell sent them there and they should just get on with it), "quangoqueenism" (discrimination against any woman who sits on more than two boards) and of course "ageism" (discrimination against anyone over 15). Let's first take "shortism". It's everywhere. The letters page in the Irish Times had a fellow writing in saying at last we had the pitter patter of tiny feet in the áras. And we had the cyberspacers, with not a tweeter of wit between them, shoving out the same old guff. In international newspaper coverage, a crowd of foreigners out there gave us yards of reference to leprechauns and little people, The Spectator referring to the "little man who resembles a bard or a leprechaun, depending on your point of view" and describing Michael D as "the least unprepossessing" of the candidates. The Washington Post said that "local satirists" (whoever they might be) sometimes depicted him as an elf, hobbit or leprechaun talking in riddles and verse. The Chinese news agency Xinhua said "some voters said they were initially sceptical of Higgins's short stature which had been the butt of many jokes". Perhaps we should relax into Mafia mode and produce neat epuhemisms for describing our new President. For instance, any man in its ranks of 6'6" stature was known as "shorty", and if someone was named Big Louis, it invariably turned out that he was no taller than 4'5". "I'm sorry, Micheál dílis, but the title 'Big Fella' is already gone to someone else. How about Mickileen Láidir? And don't worry about the guards of honour. They have plenty of 5'3" soldiers in the forces, don't they? Now take "poetism". There are simple benchmarks to be used when considering the merits of a particular poem. It rhymes or it doesn't. In my book, if it ain't rhyming ,it ain't poetry, so that's the end of that. On now to "champagneism" and "champagnerhymism". I've been fluting around with this and the only conclusion I can come to is that this is a good thing. A few shots of Moet & Chandon with breakfast, followed by a few lines of Crates' 'Old Age' - "These shriveled sinews and this bending frame, The Workmanship of Time's strong hand proclaim; Skilled to reverse whate'er the god create, And make that crooked which they fashion straight" - could work wonders for the soul. And how about 'quangoqueenism'? Poor Mary Davis. She discovered in this election that people don't really mean it when they say "if you want something done in a hurry, ask a busy person". They think you're in it for the money and the glory. Just imagine all those interminable meetings about interminable meetings. Who'd want it? And finally, we come to 'ageism'. Mickileen Láidir said during the presidential campaign he thought the idea that Sean Gallagher might be a more successful candidate because of his relative youth and business experience was "insulting to anyone over the age of 60". He also described as "crude" any talk of him being too old to take up the Presidency. We really should tone down the 'age' stuff. We don't want those pensioners back on the streets waving their medical cards, do we?