Ireland’s new President

To nobody’s surprise, the winner of the Irish Presidential Election is Catherine Connolly. The official declaration of the results from the 43 constituencies of the Republic of Ireland was announced in Dublin Castle shortly after 7pm this evening, with an emphatic margin of victory for the Galway West TD. The total number of votes cast was 1,656,436, a turnout of just 45.8% (though that was a little higher than in 2018). The number of Invalid votes was 213,738.

Catherine Connolly was comfortably elected on the first count with 914,143 votes, more than half the number of valid votes. Heather Humphreys had 424,987 votes and Jim Gavin (who withdrew at the start) got 103,568 votes.

It is worth pointing out that the share of the vote (63%) and the number of votes cast in her favour are the largest for any President in the Republic’s history.

The large number of spoilt votes (13%) is probably attributable to the narrowness of the field, but those arguing that the nomination process should be changed need to remember that Article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland stipulates how the process should occur so any change will need a referendum. People of course are entitled to spoil their paper if they wish, but I did read that one voter smearing their ballot paper with faeces, which is both disgusting and inexcusable.

I’ll repeat my view that the decision to hold the ballot on the Friday before a Bank Holiday long weekend probably contributed to the low turnout, as many people would have been planning to go away. I said the same last time, in 2018. The 2011 Presidential Election was held on a Thursday, which I think is a much better day to have an election.

Anyway, heartiest congratulations to Catherine Connolly, who won by a country mile, and will shortly become the next Uachtarán na hÉireann, the 10th person to hold that title.

#CatherineConnolly #IrishPresidentialElection #UachtaránNaHÉireann

Our next President 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪

#Ireland #IrishElection #IrishPresidentialElection #IrishPresident #Irish #IrishPolitics #IrishPol #Democracy #Vote #Voting #YourVoteIsYourVoice #Democratic #Politics

With just two counts not yet finished, it is clear that Catherine Connolly is going to win by a country mile. Since she's going to get well over half the first preferences there's no need to look at Gavin's transfers, which would have been interesting.

#Áras25 #IrishPresidentialElection

https://www.rte.ie/news/presidential-election/results/#/national

"Messy Democracy: Ireland’s Reshaped Presidency".
My loooong (4,000+ words!) article on the story of Ireland's reinvented presidency, and the background to the 2025 #irishPresidentialElection #Aras25 is now published in #BellaCaledonia
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/10/24/messy-democracy-irelands-reshaped-presidency/

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Just voted! Make sure to take a few mins to vote today - as countries around the world dismantle their democracy, our right to vote is more important than ever!

Your Vote is Your Voice - Use It!

#Ireland #IrishElection #IrishPresidentialElection #IrishPresident #Irish #IrishPolitics #IrishPol #Democracy #Vote #Voting #YourVoteIsYourVoice #Democratic #Politics

Nothing is won unless you go out and vote.

Just voted there. It takes less than a couple of mins, just seconds even, in the booth. Go vote!

#IrishPresidentialElection

Alan Kelly's stock has risen so precipitously recently that one would be forgiven for suspecting he might be part of a pump-and-dump scheme.

#IrishPresidentialElection

And then there were two…

Now that all the excitement about the Nobel Prize for Physics has died down I thought I would do a quick post to follow up my previous one about the election for the next President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann). Only three people gathered enough support by the deadline to be named on the ballot paper, namely: Catherine Connolly (an independent TD standing as a unified leftist who has the support of Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit); Jim Gavin a former GAA player and football manager for Dublin, Civil Aviation Authority bigwig, and flying instructor in the Air Corps who was picked up by Fianna Fáil as their candidate; and Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys.

Sunday 5th October saw the withdrawal of Jim Gavin. It has to be said that he looked and sounded completely out of his depth in the TV debates, performing so badly that the bookies had put him at 16-1 by Sunday morning, but the final straw was a scandal over rent overpaid by a tenant to Gavin 16 years ago and never returned. I thought Gavin always looked like a potential banana skin for Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach Micheál Martin but in the event he turned into a hot potato that left Martin with egg on his face. In retrospect it seems a very serious error of judgement to back such a weak candidate.

Apparently Martin had pushed FF members very hard to select Gavin as their candidate, even though he wasn’t a member until recently, but now they are wondering why they had been asked to endorse a dodgy landlord from outside the party when there were so many of those already in it.

So now there are only two candidates, except that the relevant electoral law does not allow a candidate to withdraw after the deadline for nominations (which was 24th September) so Jim Gavin’s name will still be on the ballot paper. It will be interesting to see how many people vote for him despite his withdrawal, as a kind of protest. They might make a difference, as might those who transfer their first choice to Heather Humphreys. I suspect many ardent FF-ers will just not vote, though. In that case it will simply be down to who wins the most first preferences.

It wasn’t – and still isn’t – obvious to me which of the two remaining candidates is favoured by these shenanigans, but it is clear what the Bookies think: odds are currently Connnolly 1/3 favourite and Humphreys 11/4. At the start of the campaign Catherine Connolly was the outsider, but she’s now odds-on favourite. She’s the only candidate whose team has canvassed me (so far)

Election Day is Friday October 24th.

And as if all that excitement weren’t enough, today was Budget Day. The reaction to that might well influence the vote for President: if it is unpopular, the anti-establishment vote might increase.

#BudgetDay #CatherineConnolly #HeatherHumphreys #IrishPresidentialElection #JimGavin #Politics