Irish politician, poet, sociologist, author and broadcaster who took office as the ninth President of Ireland on November 11, 2011. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of Irish Parliament, in the 1981 general election as a Labour Party TD.
He was president of the Student's Union at University College Galway.
He has had poems published in a number of periodicals as well as publishing three collections of his poetry, including The Betrayal in 1990.
He has four children with wife Sabina Coyne, an actress whom he married in 1974.
He is a well known Irish politician, much like David Trimble.
