{"id":429838,"date":"2026-05-03T06:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T06:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429838\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T06:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T06:54:09","slug":"weve-successfully-left-the-aras-but-we-havent-successfully-arrived-here-yet-michael-d-higgins-on-the-challenges-of-adjusting-to-life-back-in-galway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429838\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019ve successfully left the \u00c1ras, but we haven\u2019t successfully arrived here yet\u2019 \u2013 Michael D Higgins on the challenges of adjusting to life back in Galway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">In his first big interview since leaving office, the former president talks about the big move after 14 years in \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in \u2013 and hits out at \u2018leaks\u2019 from Department of Foreign Affairs\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Michael D Higgins at home in Galway. Photo: David Conachy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SN Michael D001.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Michael D Higgins at home in Galway. Photo: David Conachy<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">When Michael D Higgins and his wife, Sabina, arrived back to their Galway home last year, their neighbours stood in the rain to welcome them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">After 14 years at \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in, it was \u201cone of the most moving\u201d moments, he told the Sunday \u00adIndependent last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his first big interview since leaving office, the former president talks about the big move after 14&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,4644,2244,171749,97,42,11829,3410,3581,977,43,4268,40,38,41,39,12684],"class_list":["post-429838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-eu","tag-fuel-protests","tag-gaza","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-leo-varadkar","tag-michael-d-higgins","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}