[caption id="attachment_67114" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Dana now in the race."]
The Irish presidential field is now a magnificent seven affair as Dana Rosemary Scallon secured entry to the race Tuesday by virtue of backing from county councils in Donegal, Offaly and Longford.
And Senator David Norris, who had quit the race, regained entry after securing the nod from Dublin City Council Tuesday night.
Norris has Labour candidate Michael D Higgins to thank as Higgins urged Labour members of Dublin City Council to back the senator, a Dublin city center resident.
The backing of 20 Oireachtas members or four council is necessary to gain entry to the race.
The latest drama came after another week in a race that has captured the national imagination following the entry of Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness.
McGuinness continued to make headlines of the most varied nature as he pursued his bid for residency in Áras an Uachtaráin, the official presidential residence in Dublin's Phoenix Park.
The week started with veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne, who had been talked about only weeks ago as a potential presidential candidate himself, branding McGuinness "a liar" over his past.
"I've always been a hater of Sinn Féin, a hater of the Provisional IRA and everything they stood for, and they don't like me either," Byrne said.
"I've interviewed Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, and they are so well disciplined and so well honed that no interviewer gets anywhere with them.
"You get nowhere with them because they lie. They lie all the time. They don't mind lying and they've rehearsed their lies and they've been trained to lie, and that's what they're doing."
Mr. Byrne added that when he looks at Mr. McGuinness, he does not think "statesman and politician", but rather "former IRA man and former gunman."
"Do the Irish people want this guy to be head of the armed forces and all those connotations? He will wriggle and weasel words as usual, because they're very good at doing that," Byrne said.
The Derry man was also the focus of another attack, this time from Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter, who said McGuinness was "not an appropriate person" to be the next president.
Shatter said the deputy first minister was doing an important job in Northern Ireland, but his failure to embrace Queen Elizabeth II's visit earlier this year meant he was not the right person for the presidency.
"I think Sinn Féin's failure, and his particular failure to embrace the queen's visit, and his failure to turn up to Dublin Castle to a dinner hosted by President Mary McAleese at a time when Peter Robinson and his wife attended, indicate that he isn't an appropriate person to be our president," Shatter said.
Minister Shatter, whose Fine Gael party colleague Gay Mitchell is also a candidate, said most people were aware of McGuinness' "exotic background" and "it would be unusual to say the least" if he was to become the ceremonial head of the Irish defense forces.
Meanwhile, McGuinness himself has claimed he never killed anybody when he was in the IRA. Despite being repeatedly accused of being a member of the organization's army council and being its chief-of-staff during the Troubles, Mr. McGuinness insisted he was never indirectly responsible for somebody being killed.
"I didn't say I never fired a gun. I was in the IRA. There were battles on the streets of Derry. I've never run away from that.
"But I'm not going to sensationalize in interviews with something that could then be used to the detriment of the peace process, and to the detriment of my colleagues within government.
"I have made my peace with unionist leaders. I do think some people in the media down here need to think about peacemaking and how they make their peace with me."
