Catherine Connolly, an independent and vocal critic of the Israeli regime, has claimed Ireland’s presidency in a landslide win over her center-right opponent.
Official results released on Sunday showed overwhelming voter support for Connolly, who will assume a largely ceremonial role in Ireland.
She secured 63 percent of first-preference votes, after ineligible ballots were excluded, compared with 29 percent for her rival, Heather Humphreys of the center-right Fine Gael party.
Connolly has long condemned Israel for its oppressive treatment of Palestinians.
In a campaign video shared on her Facebook page in June, she stated: “If we in this Dáil cannot recognize that Israel is a terrorist state, then we are in serious trouble.”
She has also denounced the regime’s actions in Gaza as “genocidal.”
In September, she criticized UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s position on Hamas, asserting that it is “not up to” him to dictate the role of the Palestinian resistance movement in the future politics of a Palestinian state.
“I come from Ireland, which has a history of colonization. I would be very wary of telling a sovereign people how to run their country. The Palestinians must decide, in a democratic way, who they want to lead their country,” Connolly said.
She emphasized that Hamas, chosen by the people of Gaza in elections, remains an essential part of Palestinian civil society.
“We depend on them for statistics regarding the fatalities of the Israeli genocide,” she noted, highlighting Israel’s ongoing genocide that has killed at least 68,000 Palestinians and injured over 170,000, mostly women and children.
Connolly also questioned the credibility of Western powers, including France, Germany, the UK, and the US, regarding the future of the Palestinian people, noting that these countries, as traditional allies of Israel, consistently support the regime even as it perpetrates atrocities.
Connolly will become Ireland’s 10th president and the third woman to hold the office. A former clinical psychologist and barrister, she previously served as deputy speaker of Ireland’s lower house in 2016.
Her election is widely interpreted as a public endorsement of an independent candidate guided by personal principles rather than party allegiance.
