The landslide election at the end of October of the new President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, with the active backing of the main left-of-centre opposition parties as a unity candidate, has raised hopes of replicating this breakthrough in a serious challenge to the conservative coalition government led by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in the next Irish parliamentary election to be held no later than January 2030.
Connolly (68), a barrister and clinical psychologist, won the presidency in a campaign supported by Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Irish Labour Party and the Social Democrats as well as a range of progressive independents.
The Dublin People free newspaper echoed the long-held feelings of many left-wing activists with the headline: “Left finally unites to deliver knockout blow to Government.”
Connolly secured 914,143 first-preference votes (63%), a record in Irish presidential election history, on 24 October, comfortably seeing off the Government parties’ candidates. Fine Gael’s Heather Humphries trailed on 29.46% and Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin garnered 7.18% as his name was still on the ballot paper even though he had officially withdrawn late in the race because of a 16-year-old landlord/tenant scandal. (Landlord Gavin had failed to reimburse overpaid rent of £2,870 to one of his tenants, a tenant who is today the deputy editor of an Irish Sunday tabloid!)
Although the President of Ireland is largely a ceremonial position as head of state, the President’s public statements carry a resonance at home and abroad. Connolly’s campaign highlighted social justice, housing, unaffordable rents, homelessness, climate change, the plight of refugees and Ireland’s voice in world affairs as a neutral nation. As highlighted by The Washington Post she also had a platform that included, “an unflinching critique of Israel’s war in Gaza”.
She declared in her inauguration speech, delivered in Irish and English in Dublin Castle on 11 November, that voters have given their President “a powerful mandate to articulate their vision for a new Republic – a Republic worthy of its name where everyone is valued and diversity is cherished, where sustainable solutions are urgently implemented and where a home is a fundamental human right”.