"Fail better" - The resignation of Senator David Norris from the Irish Presidential Race

In typical, almost Wildean manner, Senator David Norris, announces his resignation from the race to be the President of Ireland with a quote from Samuel Beckett. Friends in Ireland were texting me already on Tuesday night to give me the news and to ask my opinion. David Norris would have been Ireland's first gay president, and certainly there was homophobia and prejudice displayed by some in the campaign. But in general the Irish people were supportive and he was way ahead in the opinion polls. He has been a senator representing Trinity College Dublin for many years and came to prominence as a campaigner for gay rights and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 70s and 80s. It was during this period that I knew David Norris, when I too was involved in the campaign, and was the editor of Ireland's first publicly available LGBT magazine, 'Hermes'.

I disagreed with David Norris on several things, and there were deep divisions in the early LGBT rights movement where it could be said that I placed myself firmly on the Left and David was more centre. He has since been described as "a radical liberal". He is also Ireland's foremost Joycean scholar, and indeed the house where he lives (shown in the film) lies directly across the street from the Joycean Museum which he helped to establish and which I visited for the first time this April.

Undoubtedly he made a mistake because of the letter which he sent to the Israeli authorities on behalf of his ex-lover pleading clemency after he was found guilty of underage rape (although it later emerged that it was consensual). However, it is interesting that the Irish blogger who released this information was based here in England and has a long link with the Zionist movement. And how did he access the letter? The Israeli authorities claim to know nothing about this.

Norris has a long history of speaking  out on human rights issues and has been a long time supporter of the Palestinian cause. He also has gone on record recently to attack the transfer of wealth from poor to rich both in Ireland and across Europe. Thus he would have been a radical president and he had the support of many on the Left. He has also courageously campaigned for LGBT rights for many years and criticised the Catholic Church when many others were afraid to do so. For this he deserves credit. His fall, has the character of a Greek tragedy but also has a very Irish dimension. For it was over a matter of the heart that Parnell, the great Irish 19th century political leader and orator, also fell, leaving the route to Home Rule closed and opening the doors to the struggle for Irish independence which was to overshadow Irish history for the next century.

Norris's resignation has this literary and theatrical quality and is indeed a moment of personal and political tragedy and the quote from Beckett was inspirational. Certainly his withdrawal from the presidential race will leave it much less colourful.