“And they say this country is flyin’ – but it’s not,” says Colm, a Co Monaghan bus driver.
He is speaking on the fringes of a rally for Independent candidate Catherine Connolly at The Diamond in Monaghan Town last week.
Decked out in running gear, he is among dozens seeking photographs, selfies and autographs from Connolly after she stumps in her rival the home county of her Fine Gael rival Heather Humphreys.
After posing with Connolly and his Dublin City Marathon finisher’s medal – and comparing finishing times with her – Colm outlines why he is supporting the Galway West Independent.
RM Block
A “personal voter”, who backs candidates rather than parties, he speaks of how he is angry – not for himself – but for his three children who cannot afford to buy homes, particularly his daughter and her husband who returned from abroad and now live in the parental home.
He speaks of the “arrogance” of the Dáil.
Connolly, he says, is a “lady” who had been “attacked” throughout the campaign.
“I’ve heard her talking and she seems to be there for the ordinary working-class people,” he says, before departing on his run, jogging out the road towards Cavan town which Connolly’s campaign team had already taken.
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Connolly, who was elected as Ireland’s 10th president on Saturday evening by a margin of 63 per cent of vote to 29 per cent for Humphreys, was elected to the highest office in the land in large part by convincing voters such as Colm: those who feel that the country’s economic successes are stained by deeper inequalities, themselves the result of choices made by a remote political class.
An anti-establishment, avowedly left-wing TD, Connolly’s campaign energised the section of the electorate that was open to voting for her.
Enjoying the support of five political parties and left leaning Independents, Connolly surged as the campaign wore on.
She was matched against a lacklustre campaign from Fine Gael, the implosion of the Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin and a thin field which left many voters cold.
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Her election is not a landslide victory driven by universal acclaim – voter turnout was low at 46 per cent (and there were 213,738 spoiled votes, almost 13 per cent of the total vote). But it was, nonetheless, a landslide.
The roots for this victory stretch back some time.
Connolly had been urged by those politically close to her to consider a run for Áras an Uachtárain as far back as 2020 or 2021, but she initially dismissed the idea.
She has said in recent interviews that in the last 18 months contacts from the public began to pile up, urging her to run. Again, she did not engage but earlier this year, she began to read the communications, and spoke to her staff about it. She has described it as a “torturous” process.
Independently from Connolly, a group of left-wing parties had begun their own process. Surveying the disappointing results of last November’s general election, People Before Profit-Solidarity (PBPS) TD Paul Murphy said he and others on the left were “pretty clear on a key lesson being that an alternative wasn’t offered, and that demobilised people”. The presidency was likely to be the only election between now and 2029’s local and European votes.
“It’s better terrain electorally for the left,” surmised Murphy last week, arguing that it was decided on values rather than policy.
The first tentative steps towards organising support for a candidate came from Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik in January, who wrote to her Green Party and Social Democrats counterparts Roderic O’Gorman and Cian O’Callaghan (then acting leader in place of Holly Cairns, on maternity leave).
O’Callaghan later convened a second meeting – this time inviting Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Murphy – broadening it beyond the parties Bacik had sought to convene to enter government formation talks with the larger parties after the general election.
They batted around strategy and names of potential candidates, after all agreed that someone from one of their parties could not go forward. The Independent Senator Frances Black was an early front-runner, while broadcaster Joe Duffy was also discussed, as was former ombudsman Emily O’Reilly. McDonald, sources say, punted the name of GAA president Jarlath Burns on several occasions. Connolly’s name was consistently in the mix.
As talks went on, McDonald is also said to have consistently advocated for declaring late. The prevailing logic is that declaring early opens up a candidate to scrutiny. But others in the group felt McDonald – whose party commanded well in excess of the 20 Oireachtas votes needed to nominate someone – was playing for time as Sinn Féin went through its own protracted process over whether to back a consensus candidate, or run their own – and indeed, who that might be.
PBPS and the Social Democrats, meanwhile, had met with Connolly and formed the view that she was “definitely up for it”. Connolly had concluded her meditations on whether to go forward. “Once she made the decision, it was made very quickly,” says a person close to the president-elect.
It became clear that a consensus was not going to emerge from the meetings on the left. Frances Black’s interest was fading: at the end of May she told Newstalk radio she was 98 per cent sure she would not run.
Murphy and O’Callaghan had already formed the view that Connolly, a veteran of three successful Dáil elections, would be better-suited to the scrutiny of the campaign trail. The ongoing and fruitless deliberations – again, other parties blame Sinn Féin for moving slowly – had scuppered the possibility of all parties simultaneously backing a candidate.
In July, they told the other parties that they would be supporting Connolly, who had yet to announce. McDonald, sources said, seemed surprised at an “abrupt” announcement.
The parties announced their support, providing a launch pad for Connolly. Labour met with Connolly but rather than coming as a supplicant, sources reported that Connolly told them while they were welcome to back her, her campaign was happening anyway. She wasn’t going to beseech them for their support.
This left a sour taste for some in her former party. But they also believed the choice was binary – back Connolly, or sit it out. The party held a swift internal process which garnered a majority (if not a thumping one, at 58 per cent) of support for Connolly from members, which was ratified on July 31st.
Concerns would later re-emerge.
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Connolly announced her candidacy on July 25th. Her team had made a strategic decision to have a long press conference outside Leinster House.
Themes and controversies that would punctuate the campaign proper featured, including her trip to Syria, then under dictator Bashar al-Assad, alongside fellow independents Mick Wallace, Clare Daly and Maureen O’Sullivan. Her campaign wanted to “get all that stuff out so that people would hear Catherine’s responses to those questions in her own voice”. If the hope was that these issues would not re-emerge, it was to prove forlorn.
In August, Connolly kept a relatively low profile. Behind the scenes, her core team was trying to put together the supporting architecture of a national campaign. It was led by her long-time assistant Beibhinn O’Connor and Céile Varley, a barrister who previously worked with Connolly. Lee Daly was another core member, while the parties supporting her seconded some staff and would become part of the core team.
Senior party members also sat on a liaison committee. However, their work was at arm’s length from the campaign proper. Some worried initially about a lack of “clear messaging”. It was Connolly and her closest advisers who decided on that. Sources across the campaign and supporting parties say the whip hand was consistently taken by this inner circle. They took advice, but made decisions themselves. This extended to debate preparation, undertaken by Connolly and O’Connor alone.
A campaign headquarters was sourced: a production studio owned by film-maker Ross Killeen on Hill Street in Dublin’s north inner city. Connolly was advised to avoid her hobby of rollerblading down Galway’s prom for fear of injury.
Housing, neutrality and Gaza were to be core themes, while the Irish language assumed greater importance as the campaign wore on.
As the weeks slipped by, there was also a focus on the issue of Irish unity. In August, McDonald said in Belfast that the next president should be someone “who speaks openly on the issue of Ireland’s future reunification and the pathway to it”. Asked at the time if Connolly needed to speak about Irish unity more, one Sinn Féin source responded: “Very much so.”
The party and the Connolly campaign insist this message was never directly communicated – no ultimatum was put down.
For their part, Connolly’s advisers were comfortable that her position on a United Ireland was not at odds with Sinn Féin, even though it had not been a central part of her political career. They would change nothing in search of Sinn Féin’s support, but some in the parties supporting her heard from Sinn Féin, explaining “the things she could say to help them get on board”.
One senior Sinn Féin source said that all the other values were there but on the unity question, “we believed it needed to be dominant”.
A trip to Belfast in late August was “more calculated”, according to one source in a party supporting Connolly. Connolly said there that she had always felt partition was like a “limb of our body ... cut off from us”, committing to “use her voice” on unity if elected.
Connolly’s camp reject any suggestion this was strategic, but accept they knew her stated position on unity – if restated – was unlikely to drive Sinn Féin away. These signals, a Sinn Féin TD later said, were “very helpful”.
McDonald’s party was conducting its own process of picking a candidate, which Connolly expressed a guarded frustration with.
In early July, the Sinn Féin leader reversed a publicly-held position, refusing to rule herself out as a potential candidate, spawning countless column inches.
Senior party sources insist it was going through a deep internal dialogue about its choices, unruffled by media attention. Others in left-wing parties believe there was internal tension between Oireachtas members who wanted to back Connolly and some in Belfast who wanted a Sinn Féin candidate, with McDonald’s flirtation no more than “a stalling tactic to keep people off the scent”.
Asked about this, the party said its decision was unanimous following widespread discussion.
On the morning of Sinn Féin’s ardfheis in early September, McDonald ruled herself out while welcoming Connolly’s statements on Irish unity.
The previous weekend, polling in the Sunday Independent indicated a dead heat between Jim Gavin (20 per cent), Heather Humphreys (21 per cent) and Connolly (20 per cent). When McDonald was included, support for all three declined – but more so for Connolly, by seven points.
After Sinn Féin announced it would endorse Connolly and nominations were closed, the same polling series showed Connolly way in front on 32 per cent, mirrored by The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll earlier this month, which also showed two thirds of Sinn Féin voters planned to back her.
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With the campaign proper under way, Connolly was seen as outperforming both Gavin and Humphreys in television and radio debates. By the last debates, her supporters were revelling in what they saw as her supremacy, even though Humphreys had improved.
At one watch party, they gleefully played “Heather Humphreys Bingo”, distributing cards with what they saw as Humphreys stock phrases like “common sense”, “I did my best”, “pro-European”, as well as verbal crutches used by Humphreys like “Eh”, “Yeah well”, and “Well, what I would say is”.
The campaign brought a grinding scrutiny on Connolly’s past, particularly her trip to Syria, as well as issues which emerged on the campaign trail such as her work for banks as a barrister, and her employment of a woman with a firearms conviction to work in Leinster House.
Media questioning around these issues was also seen as “hostile”, in the words of one source, with another campaign source saying it was seen as being done in “bad faith”, or being shaped by attack lines fed to the press by Fine Gael.
The last two weeks, one campaign figure said, were “horrendous”, and had “damaged the trust in the media within the campaign”.
Connolly herself has emphasised openness to scrutiny, however some media queries, especially around these issues, were not responded to (not unheard, but not common either).
Campaign sources say privately they saw some media conduct as “unacceptable” or “snide”, with some journalists accused of “berating” Connolly.
Connolly herself has been outwardly critical of the story about her former employee Ursula Ní Shionnain who had been jailed for six years for firearm offences, while one campaign source also said questioning by The Irish Times of her work as a barrister representing banks in repossession cases damaged trust. (An interview with The Irish Times was cancelled during the campaign and not rescheduled.)
Meanwhile, the Irish Daily Mail criticised the campaign for not sharing details of where Connolly would canvas. In an interview with The Journal, which broke the employee story, Connolly said there “needs to be a serious discussion” about journalism after the election.
Another feature of the campaign was that Connolly’s positions also acted as stressors on some of the parties supporting her.
Former Labour leader Alan Kelly twice publicly criticised Connolly – the first before the party’s think-in held in his home constituency. Several party sources said they believed Bacik, the Labour leader, had afterwards considered moving the event, something which she would not address afterwards but did not deny.
Former Green TD Brian Leddin left the party due to what its support for Connolly signalled about its direction, where he already had concerns.
A Labour source who privately had concerns about backing Connolly said ultimately during a time-bound campaign party cohesion was the priority. If left unity persists, the gap between positions may be a more lasting problem.
If media relations could be tense at times, the campaign was focused at getting its message out beyond mainstream media.
A social media team was led by volunteer Claire McGowan, who handles social media for The Wheel in her day job, supported by a team of volunteers. Their content travelled exceptionally well; ironically, one campaign source says, some of the unusual formats used were chosen because Connolly is uncomfortable doing direct pieces to camera, the format most commonly used by politicians.
There was a dedicated media team which, influenced by journalist Aoife Moore who was an adviser to the campaign, sought to place Connolly on podcasts where the conversational format suited her – and could reach audiences beyond mainstream media. When polling data showed a potential weakness for Connolly among men, interviews with more male-led podcasts such as Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning were sought out.
There was also a significant focus on translating digital support for Connolly into on-the-ground action. A digital campaigning team initially tried to call every person who gave contact details to the campaign. As the number grew, that was replaced by volleys of emails where people would be asked to canvas, poster, or donate. It was managed using a digital customer relationship management tool, which is to be stood down after the election.
The campaign created a tool called “WhatsApper” which allowed individualised messages to multiple contacts on the popular messaging app. The “communities” function on WhatsApp was also used, segmented by region.
There was extensive organising on the ground, which often used pre-existing structures from parties supporting Connolly. Those familiar with the campaign say that Sinn Féin was particularly useful in constituencies where other parties might not have a representative, although one person said it was less present on the “core” campaign team. This was despite seconding four people to that team, due to the party’s later arrival in the campaign.
Many constituencies had comprehensive structures: volunteer co-ordinators, a person to liaise with the campaign, a treasurer and leaders on postering and canvasing.
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Connolly campaign suggests a mandate for an active presidency, although one where the candidate has routinely acknowledged the constitutional limits of the office. Connolly has described herself as representing a movement which will continue after the election. Exactly what the lasting impact outside the Áras is less clear.
There are those on the left who see it as a second example, following the speaking rights row, of left unity and another reason for cohesion in opposition. Paul Murphy says he would like to see a single candidate put forward for the Galway West by-election for the seat to be vacated by Connolly. But acknowledging that may be too ambitious, he wants to see a formal transfer pact.
Others on the left are more guarded, Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman says it is a “step forward”, but warns that while there will be policy areas where it is possible to co-operate, “it is a long, long way from the general election”.
Ivana Bacik says that with a standard bearer for uniting the left there is “certainly a momentum we need to look at” towards a combined left government after the next election.
“We can now see some sort of beginning of that coming out of this campaign,” she said.
As a successful campaign draws to a close, the chapter on the Connolly presidency – and what it might signify – now begins.
