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Catherine Connolly
Irish politician (born 1957) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Catherine Martina Ann Connolly (born 12 July 1957) is an Irish independent politician who has served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway West constituency since 2016. Connolly is an independent candidate in the 2025 presidential election.
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Connolly began her political career as a member of the Labour Party, for which she was elected to Galway City Council in 1999, and was Mayor of Galway from 2004 to 2005. She left the party in 2007 in a dispute over candidate selection. After unsuccessfully contesting the 2007 and 2011 general elections in Galway West as an independent, Connolly was elected to the Dáil in 2016. She served as Leas-Cheann Comhairle of the 33rd Dáil from July 2020 to November 2024.
Ideologically on the political left, Connolly supported the 2015 same-sex marriage referendum, the 2018 repeal of the Eighth Amendment and is a supporter of Irish neutrality. Her presidential campaign is supported by Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, the Green Party, People Before Profit, 100% Redress and several independent Oireachtas members.
Connolly is an Irish speaker and has worked as a clinical psychologist and as a barrister.
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Early life and education
Connolly grew up in the suburb of Shantalla, Galway City, one of 14 siblings (seven boys and seven girls).[1][2][3][4] Her father was a carpenter and a shipbuilder, who built Galway hooker sailing boats.[3] Her mother died when she was nine years old, at the age of 43, suspected to have been caused by issues related to asthma.[4] The family grew up in one of Galway's first social housing developments.[3] In the 1970s, Connolly led a campaign to have tennis courts built in Shantalla.[5]
Connolly earned a master's degree in clinical psychology from the University of Leeds in 1981 before practicing as a clinical psychologist. She subsequently earned a law degree from the University of Galway in 1989 before studying at the King's Inns and becoming a barrister in 1991.[6]
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Galway politics
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Connolly joined the Labour Party after the 1997 general election.[5] She was elected to Galway City Council for Labour in the west city area at the 1999 corporation election. For the 2004 council election, Connolly switched to the south city local electoral area to allow her sister, Colette, to contest the election in the west area of the city;[7][8] both were elected.[9] In the same year, she was elected Mayor of Galway, leading Labour into a power-sharing agreement with Fine Gael and independent councillors.[5] As Mayor, Connolly successfully advocated for and presided over the awarding (in absentia) of the Freedom of Galway City to Myanmar political activist Aung San Suu Kyi in June 2005.[10]
Connolly was a supporter of Michael D. Higgins's unsuccessful campaign to run in the 2004 presidential election;[11] she later voted to nominate Dana Rosemary Scallon for that election.[12] She aimed to run in the 2007 general election as a running mate of Higgins in Galway West, but the party opted to only run one candidate in the constituency. Higgins had reportedly considered retiring due to health concerns, but he allowed his name to go forward to contest the seat again; Connolly criticised Higgins for "dragging his heels" on the decision,[13][14] describing the decision to only run him as "crazy" and saying the party "lost out on a great opportunity".[15] She left the Labour Party and contested the 2007 general election as an independent candidate, polling just over 2,000 votes.[16]
Electoral results
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National politics
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Connolly contested the 2011 general election again in Galway West,[17] where she lost out on the last seat to Fine Gael's Seán Kyne by only 17 votes. She sought a full recount,[18] which concluded after four days but did not change the outcome.[19]
She was elected to the Dáil for the Galway West constituency at the 2016 general election.[20] Her sister, Colette Connolly, who had lost her seat as a Labour councillor in 2014,[21] was co-opted as an independent to replace Catherine on Galway City Council.[22]
She voted for Richard Boyd Barrett for Taoiseach when the 32nd Dáil first met.[23] At the 32nd Dáil's second meeting on 5 April 2016, she made her maiden speech in which she criticised the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government Alan Kelly's handling of Ireland's homelessness crisis.[24] Connolly sat on the Public Accounts Committee and was Chair of the Committee on the Irish Language, the Gaeltacht and the Islands.
In 2018 Connolly joined Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Maureen O'Sullivan on a visit to Damascus, Maaloula and Aleppo in Syria.[25][26][27] When launching her 2025 presidential campaign she defended this trip, commenting that she funded the trip herself and that she did not "utter one word of support for Assad".[28] However, Politico observed that Connolly also refrained from criticising Assad at that time and later called for the removal of sanctions on his regime.[29]
Connolly contested the 2020 general election and was re-elected on the 12th count.[30]
Electoral results
Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann (2020–2024)
Connolly was elected the Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann on 23 July 2020, in a surprise victory over Fine Gael candidate Fergus O'Dowd, becoming the first woman to hold the position.[31]
In January 2021, Connolly criticised the Government for their handling of the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related matters). Referring to the Taoiseach (Micheál Martin), Tánaiste (Leo Varadkar) and Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Roderic O'Gorman) as the "three unwise men", she criticised the Government's failure to provide survivors of mother and baby homes the report before it was released to the general public.[32] Connolly stated: "This document I have to hand is what the report looks like. I hold it up to show survivors because they do not have it. It is the executive summary with the recommendations and one or two other things. Not a single survivor has it. I have it since yesterday, when it was put in the pigeonholes of Deputies."[32]
In June 2023 Connolly appeared alongside Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, Mairéad Farrell and George Galloway in a "Neutrality forum" hosted by the organisation "Galway Alliance Against War" where the topic for discussion was the Russo-Ukrainian War.[33]
In May 2024, during the campaign for the 2024 European Parliament election, Connolly endorsed Clare Daly in the Dublin constituency going so far as to launch her campaign.[34]
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2025 presidential campaign
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Connolly confirmed on 11 July on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta that she had decided to run for president of Ireland and believed she had the necessary support.[35] On 16 July, Connolly officially launched her campaign outside Leinster House and confirmed she had received the minimum of twenty Oireachtas nominations required to run for the office.[36] Connolly emphasised giving a voice to ordinary people and tackling issues such as a United Ireland, climate change, homelessness, and the normalisation of violence.[28] She signalled interest in scrutinising the €330,000 presidential salary, stating she would "look at it" and consider using it "for the common good" if elected.[37]
Endorsements
Connolly's campaign was backed by the Social Democrats,[38] People Before Profit, 100% Redress and a number of independent Oireachtas members.[39] On 31 July, Connolly secured the backing of the Labour Party.[40] However, on 27 August, Labour TD Alan Kelly said he would not support Connolly due to concerns about her policies on international relations.[41] On 4 September Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger backed Connolly and on 19 September the Green Party announced it would endorse Connolly's candidacy.[42][43] On 20 September Sinn Féin announced its backing for Connolly's campaign.[44] Connolly was also backed by both the Workers' Party and the Communist Party of Ireland, neither of which has any elected representatives.[45][46][non-primary source needed]
Holly Cairns (Social Democrats), Marie Sherlock (Labour), independent senator Eileen Flynn, Roderic O'Gorman (Green Party), Paul Murphy (People Before Profit) and Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin) all spoke at Connolly's campaign launch on the 22 September endorsing her candidacy.[47]
Campaign trail
Connolly visited Belfast on 28 August 2025. She said that citizens of Northern Ireland should be permitted to vote in the presidential election, and the North was a "limb" cut off from the Republic of Ireland.[48][49]
She was interviewed about her candidacy and connections to Dundalk at the An Táin Arts Centre in County Louth on 30 August 2025.[50][51] She visited County Donegal on the 12 September and 27 September 2025, meeting with county councillors, sitting TD Charles Ward, Senator Eileen Flynn and former TD Thomas Pringle.[52][53]
She attended several agricultural shows in August: the Bonniconlon Show in County Mayo, the Ballyshannon Show in County Donegal and the Tullamore Show in County Offaly. She came back to Offaly on a higher-profile visit for the National Ploughing Championships on 17 September 2025, where she was interviewed about rural and agricultural life in Ireland and her presidential candidacy.[54]
Nomination of Gemma O'Doherty in 2018
At her campaign launch, Connolly was questioned about her nominating the conspiracy theorist Gemma O'Doherty for the 2018 Irish presidential election. Connolly was one of eleven Oireachtas members who did so.[55] Connolly said that she "doesn't regret her decision to sign O’Doherty's papers at the time", adding that she "did not know her personally but saw her as a journalist who had done some very good work in the past".[56] In September 2025, Connolly stated she would not have nominated O'Doherty if it had been a few years later.[4]
Visit to Syria
During Connolly's campaign, she faced scrutiny for a visit she made to Ba'athist Syria in 2018, along with Mick Wallace (then a Member of the European Parliament), Clare Daly (also an MEP) and Maureen O'Sullivan (then a TD). Members of the Irish-Syria Solidarity Movement asked the Labour Party not to support Connolly's campaign, arguing that the trip had "provided legitimacy to the Assad regime and its narrative".[57] Connolly said the trip was a "fact-finding mission" to see the harm that EU sanctions were causing to Syrian civilians.[58] She visited a refugee camp in Damascus and travelled to Aleppo to meet the Chamber of Commerce and UNICEF. Connolly said she did not support the Assad regime: "On no occasion had I anything to do with the government, nor did I ever utter one word of support for Assad".[58] She added: "Assad's dictatorship committed countless atrocities and human rights abuses, all of which I have criticised".[58]
In a piece for The Journal during her campaign, Shane Raymond noted that "the Irish tour group was shown around Aleppo by the pro-Assad commentator Fares Al-Shehabi, who ... had been put under sanctions by the EU for supporting the Assad regime". The year before, he had called for the rape and murder of anti-Assad Syrians and journalists.[27] Connolly replied that meeting Al-Shehabi was a "mistake". She said she "had absolutely no respect for that man after listening to him" during the trip, and "In retrospect, when one looks back and sees the comments that he made ... this man is utterly unacceptable to me".[59]
Appointment of parliamentary assistant
On 1 October, theJournal.ie published the story that, in 2018, Connolly sought to hire Ursula Ní Shionnain, a former Éirígí member who had served almost four and a half years of a six-year prison sentence for firearms offences, as an administrative support in Leinster House.[60] Ní Shionnain had been convicted by the Special Criminal Court in 2014 after being arrested in a stolen van carrying weapons, one of which had previously been used in a murder, though there was no suggestion she was linked to that crime. Ní Shionnain, who holds degrees in early and modern Irish and in language planning, had been working on a PhD in new Irish language communities at the time of her arrest. Connolly said she assessed Ní Shionnain’s suitability through recommendations from prison visiting committees and politicians familiar with her background, and that she understood Ní Shionnain had rehabilitated herself and was no longer active in Éirígí.[61] Ní Shionnain's hiring was intended to support Connolly’s work on the Oireachtas committee for the Irish language. Garda vetting was required for employment in Leinster House, but Connolly stated that the process was not completed during Ní Shionnain’s six-month tenure, which ended when she left of her own accord.
The hiring drew criticism from senior political figures, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Fine Gael's presidential candidate Heather Humphreys, who raised concerns about parliamentary security and the judgment of employing a former prisoner with past dissident republican affiliations. Connolly and others, including former Fianna Fáil minister Éamon Ó Cuív and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, defended the decision as an example of rehabilitation, noting Ní Shionnain's further education and professional work since release, with Ó Cuív stating he had in fact recommended the appointment to Connolly.[62] Connolly also expressed concern about the public disclosure of Ní Shionnain’s identity, describing it as damaging to her privacy and questioning how and why the information was released.[61][63]
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Political views
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Connolly is characterised in the media as a left-wing independent.[64][26][29][65] In May 2025, The Phoenix magazine described her as a "long-time socialist" who had been regarded as "left-wing" and an "Irish republican" during her time in Labour,[66] although Connolly clarified in September 2025 that she never supported the Provisional IRA during the Troubles and feels that "violence was never justified" during that time period.[4][67] Connolly identifies as a pacifist.[67]
Clare Daly and Mick Wallace have been identified as political allies of Connolly, with Connolly endorsing Daly in her 2024 European re-election campaign;[29][34][68][4] in a 2025 interview with Hot Press, Connolly said she had "the greatest of respect" for Wallace and Daly.[4]
Domestic affairs
She supported the 2013 referendum on Irish court reform, saying the passing of the referendum "renewed her faith in democracy".[69]
In 2018, Connolly supported the repeal of the eighth amendment which allowed the Oireachtas to legislate for abortion,[70] supporting the legalisation of abortion up to 12 weeks.[71]
In 2025, Connolly stated "Our Defence Forces exist to protect our people, our sovereignty, and ... to foster peace where conflict has broken out". She added: "Ireland needs our Defence Forces. We must value, respect, and support their members. But Ireland does not need an army", arguing that "armies fight wars" and are "at odds with a nation's neutrality".[58]
Connolly believes that drug use and addiction should be treated primarily as health issues rather than criminal offences. She has expressed support for moves toward drug decriminalisation, highlighting the work of politicians such as Gino Kenny in advancing this cause. In her view, criminalisation fails to address the root causes of addiction and instead punishes vulnerable people.[4]
Connolly has described euthanasia as a complex issue but stated that she accepts the principle of individual autonomy in end-of-life decisions. She supports allowing people to make such choices provided there are robust safeguards to prevent abuse.[4]
Foreign affairs
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In 2025, Politico characterised Connolly's foreign policy views as pro-neutrality, "often anti-Western", and anti-NATO, while also highlighting her "trenchant" criticism of Israel.[29] She has called for solidarity with the Palestinian people;[58] in April 2025, Connolly said in the Dáil "I challenge all of us to stand up and stop the genocide taking place in our name, because we are complicit",[68] while in July of the same year, she called Israel a "genocidal state".[26] While Mayor of Galway from 2004 to 2005, Connolly spoke in opposition to the Iraq War.[72] In 2017, she opposed sanctions against Ba'athist Syria, arguing that such sanctions were untargeted and only made the situation worse for Syrians.[73][27]
Connolly's approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been to condemn Russia but also NATO.[58] She called the invasion "illegal and unacceptable"[74] and said Russia "must immediately end its horrific assault".[58] Regarding Russian opposition to NATO enlargement, she stated that "NATO has played a despicable role in moving forward to the border and engaging in warmongering. Ireland has been hypocritical on many levels".[68][58] She has called for continued solidarity with the Ukrainian people.[58]
Connolly has expressed concerns about Irish neutrality being challenged;[75] she said that Ireland's peace is threatened by what she called "the war-mongering military industrial complex" in Europe.[76] In 2025, Connolly remarked that "we certainly cannot trust" countries such as "The US, England and France" because they "are deeply entrenched in an arms industry which causes bloodshed across the world".[58]
Connolly has criticised the European Union as having a "blatant neoliberal agenda".[3] She opposed the ratification of the Treaty of Nice in the 2002 referendum,[77] and the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon in both referendums.[78][79] On Europe Day 2025, Connolly declared that she was "ashamed to be European" because she believed the current EU leadership was pro-Israel.[3] Connolly said that "The EU has become increasingly militarised under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen and the European People's Party", and "has lost sight of its foundations: a project developed to promote and preserve peace".[58] After launching her presidential bid later that year, Connolly said she does not consider herself a Eurosceptic and called herself a "committed European".[3]
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Personal life
Connolly has lived in the Claddagh in Galway City since 1988, and is married with two adult sons.[80][81] She has worked as clinical psychologist with the Western Health Board in Ballinasloe and Connemara in County Galway, and as a barrister. She is an Irish speaker, having done a diploma in Irish at university[4] and also speaks German, having studied psychology in Germany.[82][3] She was raised Catholic but has described herself as areligious.[4][83]
Sligo-based socialist politician Declan Bree is Connolly's brother-in-law.[84]
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See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Catherine Connolly.
Notes
- Endorsed by Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats, People Before Profit, Green Party, Solidarity, 100% Redress and several independent Oireachtas members.
References
External links
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