IDENTIFIED as firmly a voice for the dispossessed and marginalised, Uachtarán Catherine Connolly has caught a mood that has been simmering but lacking confidence for too long. Its day has come and Ireland will potentially, if we can continue to be brave, have its traumatic past changed to a healing and united future.
Catherine Connolly engages with the legacies of colonisation and partition through her relationships with ordinary people and their lives. It is a powerful example of the best of Irishness, which has now an unprecedented mandate.
During the course of a curious campaign her quiet determination to be true to herself and her politics created a momentum in an electorate desperately seeking honesty and integrity. It was clear from the get-go that her campaign was not going to flip-flop in order to please everyone. It was a campaign that acknowledged difference and asked for respect. And gave respect back. But her principles were for all to see.
At the beginning of the campaign her pleas for pensions for survivors of institutional abuse spoke to the dignity of the lived lives of women who had been abandoned by the state. When she asked for support for the 'Women of Honour', her track record gave us assurance that this was not for optics. When she played football in the courtyards of flats, you knew it was not the first time she had laughed with a kid from the working classes. She was real. She explained herself. And we believed her.
It meant that smearing the bejaysus out of her would never work. She stood by her office worker with a past conviction, not paying any attention to the faux outrage, let alone rise to it. She let the people decide whether her work as a barrister should be interpreted as compromising. She was on the record on Irish neutrality and stood by her thoughtful approach to foreign policy. Apparently, integrity is smearing’s Teflon.
The electorate liked being trusted. And in return they liked trusting the women in front of them. That augurs well for the future.
The far right is seen as an influencer in Irish politics. If Catherine Connolly’s example is followed they will melt like snow off a ditch. You can’t play the “all politicians are cynical” card when politicians are not cynical. You can’t discredit the democratic process as being incapable of delivering for the marginalised and dispossessed when the politician in front of you is amplifying your dispossessed voice and creating space that makes margins disappear.
That the opposition parties united behind her in the first place was welcome, but that there was clear coherence, good form and lasting partnership in the campaign was unprecedented, remarkable and seriously encouraging for those who hope that an end can be brought to the post-partition duopoly of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. What began as a united front, led by Mary Lou McDonald, which challenged the Oireachtas voting rights carve-up, has now delivered a President with an unprecedented mandate.
The question of Irish unity framed the entire campaign. All of the opposition parties are now in that frame. Preparation for Irish unity will be a part of the alternative government’s mandate. What began as a lacklustre and uninspiring Presidential campaign has changed the course of our island’s history. If we can stay the course and maintain that integrity.
