Archive for Irish Presidential Election

Ireland’s new President

Posted in Politics with tags , , on October 25, 2025 by telescoper

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.

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And then there were two…

Posted in Politics with tags , , , , , on October 7, 2025 by telescoper
Catherine Connolly (left) and Heather Humphreys (right)

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.

Update: it is clear from here that Gavin’s votes will be treated as valid and if he finishes third on first preferences, his transfers will be counted in the usual way.

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And then there were three…

Posted in Politics with tags , , , , , , on September 24, 2025 by telescoper

Nominations of candidates for the next President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann) closed at 12 noon, and only three gathered enough support to be named on the ballot paper. These are Catherine Connolly (left), Jim Gavin (centre) and Heather Humphreys (right). The last time there were as few as three candidates was 1990, when Mary Robinson was elected. The last Presidential Election had six candidates.

A number of names were touted ahead of today’s deadline for nominations, some plausible and some bizarre, but most dropped out without ever getting started. That list includes Bob Geldof, Michael Flatley of Riverdance fame, Conor McGregor (a famous rapist), a man who runs a doggy-day-care business, and a lady, whose name escapes me, who used to read the weather forecast on the telly.

Last week businessperson Gareth Sheridan also dropped out, having failed to convince enought local authorities to nominate him. The threshold for this route to nomination is very low, just 4 out of 31 – 26 County Councils, three City Councils (Dublin, Galway and Cork) and two hybrids (Limerick and Waterford). Sheridan only secured two so dropped out. I never really understood why he was standing as his company is facing litigation in the USA for fraud and breach of contract, and that would have undergone relentless scrutiny during the election campaign, so I find it strange he was willing to risk that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now; he’s a non-runner.

The last one to drop out was ultra-conservative Catholic anti-everything campaigner Maria Steen. She went for the route of nominations from members of the  Oireachtas (TDs and Senators). After frantically scraping the bottom of the barrel she came up two short of the 20 needed and dropped out just before the deadline. My worry with this reactionary person was not that Ireland would end up with her as President, but that the election campaign (which will last a month) would be dominated by her airing her bigoted views.

The three remaining candidates are: 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 is a former GAA player and football manager for Dublin and flying instructor in the Air Corps who was picked up by Fianna Fáil as their candidate (although I don’t think he was a member before the campaign started); and last;y we have the Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys. I normally react with an instant “no” to FG drones, but she is a Presbyterian, whose father was a member of an Orange Order, which would be interesting for North-South politics on the island.

Maria Steen would probably have fragmented the right-wing vote and thus favoured Connolly on first preferences, but now it’s basically a choice between one left and two right. Since FF and FG are basically equivalent, they will probably mainly transfer to each other, so if Connolly is going to win she will have to do it on first preferences.

Election day (24th October) is exactly a month away. Deciding who to vote for will be as easy as one-two-three.

PS. The bookies’ odds via Oddschecker are: Humphreys 11/10 fav; Gavin 15/8; Connolly 5/2.

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Presidential Election Time

Posted in Politics with tags , , , , on September 29, 2018 by telescoper

This week the deadline passed for nominations of candidates for the post of President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann). The rather peculiar nomination process has left voters with a choice of six, including the incumbent Michael D Higgins. As a relative newcomer to Ireland, even I know that the post of President doesn’t have any real power associated with it and is largely ceremonial. Surprisingly, some of the people who put themselves forward didn’t seem to understand that but, fortunately, some of the more obvious fruitcakes who put themselves forward failed to get nominated. On the other hand, three of the candidates are businessmen best known for having appeared on the Irish version of the TV show Dragon’s Den. There’s ample evidence that the products of reality TV shows do not make good presidents.

The election takes place precisely four weeks from now, on Friday 26th October 2018, and the term of the presidency is 7 years – the last such election took place in 2011.

Naturally, given the vital importance of the office of the Presidency and the need to treat the forthcoming election with the appropriate gravitas, my first thought was to look at the betting odds on Paddy Power. Here is the full SP:

  1. Michael D. Higgins (Incumbent) 1/5
  2. Sean Gallagher  5/1
  3. Gavin Duffy 14/1
  4. Joan Freeman 25/1
  5. Liadh Ni Riada  33/1
  6. Peter Casey 66/1

Obviously Michael D Higgins is a strong favourite. I think he’s carried out his duties in a very dignified and diligent way for seven years, so he will probably get my vote. Candidates 2, 3 and 6 are the Dragon’s Den people. Joan Freeman is a  journalist by trade (and an Independent member of the Seanad Éireann) and Liadh Ni Riada is the official candidate of Sinn Féin. Neither of the two biggest parties in the Dáil Éireann, Fine Gael and Fianna Fianna Fáil, nominated a candidate, preferring to back the incumbent.

It seems likely that Michael D. Higgins will win and serve another seven years, but it’s hard to be confident about anything in politics these days so we’ll just have to wait and see..

 

 

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