MICHAEL D HIGGINS has admitted that he found it “a bit tough” to leave his native Galway when he became president last month.

In an interview, the President suggested that he is a little homesick in his new Dublin home in Áras an Uachtaráin as he had to leave Galway quite suddenly.

While his wife Sabina got used to their new life in the Áras very quickly, Michael D said that he found it “a bit tougher” because of the short period between the election result and the inauguration.

In the interview with Vincent Browne, which will be broadcast tomorrow night, the President discusses how his life changed dramatically after last month’s inauguration.

I have found it a bit tougher to leave Galway, and I have… I left Galway quite suddenly because the election had been pushed out a week because of the referendums and that meant you had a shorter period between the result of the election and the inauguration than you’d normally have. So I just really hadn’t a chance to pack very quickly.

However Sabina found the chance much more straightforward, saying:

We were eased into it by all the staff. The house has a life of its own, an activity and a rhythm all of its own, and it’s all geared towards the Presidency. Michael was missing Galway a lot because I had a bit more time. I didn’t realise it at first that there was a part of the house that was our house, private, you know. And that would be our home and Michael must think of coming home to there.

However Michael D says that he found it “valuable” to go back to Galway for two sports matches since he became president:

I was down in Galway since for a Galway United match, about which we won’t say much… and for the Connacht Toulouse Heineken cup match, and they were very valuable.

In the interview the President also talks about his difficult relationship with his father, saying that he feels that he had “lost the opportunity of being close to him”.

The interview with Vincent Browne airs on Wednesday night at 11.10pm on TV3.

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