Hot Press Books has announced that Power To The People (The Hot Press Years) by Michael D Higgins is now in bookshops all over Ireland.

The author's royalties for the book – which is dedicated to the late Sally O’Neill Sanchez – will be donated to the Irish aid agency Trócaire, with whom Sally worked.

Michael D. Higgins was elected President of Ireland in 2011 and again, for a second term, in 2018, but, before his life as Ireland's number one citizen, he was writing in Ireland's only magazine dedicated to music.

During his ten years with Hot Press as a columnist, Michael D. Higgins wrote brilliantly and passionately about many of the most important issues affecting Ireland – and also the world at large.

“Michael D's column was wide-ranging and free of conventional media constraints,” Hot Press editor Niall Stokes said.

“It could be devastatingly critical on the one hand, and open-minded, warm and inspiring on the other – but it always reflected the deeply-felt commitment to human rights and to the equality agenda that would ultimately see Ireland modernise in the most impressive way socially and culturally.

“That makes it an essential document of modern Ireland in-the-making.”

In the column, over a decade, Higgins had the opportunity to develop and flesh out the radical, human-rights-based, culturally-rooted agenda that he would take into his role, first as Minister for the Arts, and later as President of Ireland. 

"The discipline of writing that fortnightly piece for Hot Press required me, regularly, to stand back and reflect deeply on the history and context of what I was doing – and why,” President Higgins said.

“I put my heart and soul into the writing, developing and refining what I hoped to be a sense of immediate, human urgency. 

“The full interaction of my work as a concerned politician and activist was informed by what I was writing. 

“I am so glad to have had that opportunity – and it moves me greatly to have that work brought together now for everyone to see and read – and hopefully to enjoy.”  

To read these brilliantly written, sometimes apocalyptic, dispatches now is to see a major politician and globally acclaimed intellectual being afforded the freedom to flex his visionary muscles and sharpen his idealism in the most extraordinary way. 

It was inspiring, often provocative, egalitarian stuff that pulled no punches.

Power To The People by Michael D. Higgins is described as "far more than a historical document. It was history in the making then. It still is."

The Hardback edition, a limited edition signed by the President and with eight extra pages of photos, is available exclusively from the Hot Press online shop.

The Paperback edition  is  available in all good bookshops from November 25th.