I don't for any one minute diminish the qualities of many figures like Michael Higgins or Mary McElhees. But all I can say is that they do not unite the nation in the way that the monarchy does. The monarchy has a very important negative power, blocking power if you like which is it because the king and previously the queen is head of the armed forces - nobody else can be. These are things that we sort of take for granted but to have this sort of, does it work? It counts for continuity, it counts for permanence. There is not having a number of very common phalluses he says.

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