Catherine Connolly and Elon Musk are the real stories of the Presidential election, not Maria Steen

Catherine Connolly has been elected as the upcoming, 10th President of Ireland. The Galway independent TD will officially take up residence in Áras an Úachtaráin on November 10th, when the curtain will finally come down on the second seven-year term of President Michael D. Higgins.

There are many who believe that Michael D. is the greatest President we have ever had in Ireland – and for very good reason.

A high bar was set by Mary Robinson, who established, between 1990 and 1997, that the role of President could be a far more dynamic one than had habitually been the case since the inception of the State. As President, she helped to set a new tone for Ireland, and changed the perception of the country, in terms of human rights, our relations with the UK and the wider aspiration to play a positive, even potentially inspirational role on the world stage.

While Mary Robinson’s approval ratings were high, and she was widely respected, she still gave the impression of being somewhat remote. That view was reinforced when she decided to end her term a few months early to take up a position with the United Nations. It was a move that seemed disrespectful and – to an extent at least – tarnished her otherwise impressive legacy.

In contrast, during his tenure, Michael D. won the hearts and minds of Irish people in a way that no previous President had. He was extraordinarily accessible and yet capable of delivering highly sophisticated, nuanced, intellectual speeches on every aspect of global politics and power relations.

He opened up the Áras to countless thousands of the citizens who are active across multiple different disciplines, in an often unheralded, collective drive to make Ireland a better, more open, pluralistic, thoughtful and compassionate country. None of this was done with a heavy hand. On the contrary, without ever shying away from the serious issues, there was frequently a sense of mischievousness, fun and enjoyment about what happened in Áras an Úachtaráin during his Presidency.

He was – and is – loved by artists, musicians, authors, film-makers and actors because they understand that he is one of them: a thinker, writer, poet and orator of exceptional intelligence, passion and eloquence, who has always been far more comfortable among the bohemians and the creators than anyone else who came up through the Irish political system.

But, and this was a surprise to many politicos, he was also widely and well loved by Irish people in general. Whether in his public appearances, what he had to say on the big occasions of State, or his numerous appearances on television, on radio and in print, he consistently came across as warm, humorous, generous and committed.

And finally, in so many febrile situations – from the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 onwards and including the loss of so many major artistic and cultural figures, including Brendan Kennelly, Seamus Heaney, Tom Murphy, Dolores O’Riordan, Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan – he reliably said the right, sensitive thing, so often acting as a lightning rod and a guiding spirit for the wider public mood in Ireland. This was most recently seen in the stance he took, at considerable personal risk, on the genocide in Gaza, and the abject failure, on the part of so many European countries, and of the European Union itself, to face the truth of what is happening under their watch.

As this issue of Hot Press – containing as it does many wonderfully glowing tributes to the outgoing President – confirms, he is, and will be, an extremely hard act to follow. But it is telling that, in Catherine Connolly, this responsibility has been handed by the Irish electorate to another left-wing candidate, who has also been outspoken on the morality – or rather the complete immorality – of the horrors that have been perpetrated by Israel, and supported by the United States of America, in Gaza and, increasingly, the West Bank.

President Michael D. Higgins on October 10th, 2025. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

Since the Presidential numbers were crunched, there has been an attempt on the part of the media to suggest that this is not the real story of the election – and that it was really all about spoiled votes and the terrible loss to the nation that the right-wing, anti-choice candidate Maria Steen was not able to get her name on the ballot paper.

What this suggests is that the media – or sections of it – are very happy to join in the hype rather than thinking clearly about the numbers and what they tell us about the genuine preferences of Irish voters.

As the agreed left-wing candidate, supported by the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, the Labour Party and, finally, Sinn Féin, Catherine Connolly received 63.4% of valid first preferences.

That is considerably more than double the vote of the Fine Gael candidate, Heather Humphreys at 29.5%, with the Fianna Fáil candidate, Jim Gavin – who had withdrawn from the race – limping in at 7.2%, despite a concerted campaign by Fianna Fáil TDs to encourage party members to give him their No.1.

For sure, it is important to acknowledge that the limitations imposed on councillors by Fine Gael and then Fianna Fáil, insisting that they should not participate in nominating independent candidates, meant that we were left with a tiny field. For many, even on the left, that meant a depressing lack of choice. But – as is so often said in relation to sport – you can only play what’s in front of you. And Catherine Connolly managed that, navigating through the campaign with a quiet grace and dignity.

She galvanised support from young people in particular, who feel that they are being systematically excluded by the failure of the establishment political parties to address the housing crisis with anything like the sense of urgency necessary to make a difference. Her percentage of first preferences suggests that she retained the support of the vast majority of the people who voted for Same Sex Marriage, and to Repeal the 8th Amendment, in successive referenda.

No matter how you look at it, that is a remarkable achievement which, for some strange reason, is being downplayed by the dominant media outlets, including RTÉ.

As for Maria Steen, the idea being widely touted – and supported by the cakewalk interviews she has been afforded – that the country lost its proper President elect is just so much self-serving bullshit. There is no evidence whatsoever of significant support for any attempt to drag us back into the hell-hole that Ireland was, when we were subject to religious domination. In fact it is almost certain that, if Steen had been on the ballot paper, far more of the young, liberal lefties would have made a point of casting their votes to ensure that no marriage of convenience among reactionaries would have any hope of sneaking up on the inside.

Maria Steen.

VESTED INTERESTS

There was much ado also, in the media, about the number of votes that were spoiled in the election. In total, we were breathlessly informed, 213,718 votes were spoiled, representing a record 12.9% of the votes cast, compared to 1.2% in 2018.

Right-wing politicians are trying to convince us that this is “seismic.” But this is to miss the point entirely. In 2018, there were plenty of right-wing candidates that the anti-migrant whisperers could vote for. The most extreme of these, Peter Casey, received 23.5% of the vote. There were others on the ballot paper to satisfy the old fashioned religious throwbacks. In that election, candidates of the left – Michael D. Higgins and Liadh Ní Riada of Sinn Fein – between them received 62% of the vote. But the votes of the disaffected right were spread across four other candidates.

The first difference on this occasion is that there were far fewer candidates on the ballot paper. Of equal or greater importance is the fact that there was an ugly, well-funded campaign encouraging people to spoil their votes. Maria Steen says she had nothing to do with this and we will take that at face value. But the campaign was supported by the kind of entrenched right-wing bullies who want to impose their will – and their politics – on people across Europe, as well as in Ireland.

People, that is, like Elon Musk, who as the owner of X (formerly Twitter) has tried to interfere in elections in Germany (where he supports the fascist Afd) and the UK (where he supports the fascist Tommy Robinson). Many of those who were involved in the Spoil Your Vote campaign have very significant social media followings. But how many of those followers are in Ireland? And how were they generated?

There is a sinister bottom line here and it is to do with money and power. Where X is concerned, if you are saying things that appeal to the owner, he will post and repost horrible, bigoted, toxic racist views just because he can; he will have the algorithms sneakily tweaked to ensure that he and others of similarly nasty views will be given prominence in the feeds of the maximum possible number of people. And so on...

Why are establishment politicians – and indeed the political classes generally – so unwilling to face the truth that it is social media, and the fact that it is controlled by a very small number of people with huge vested interests, who are only too willing to toe the Donald Trump line, which is fuelling the rise of the far right?

In social media, it is all ultimately about money and how much someone – anyone! – is prepared to spend with the platforms to spread the poison. And, in particular where Elon Musk is concerned, it is about the fact that he has the power to amplify and promote anti-migrant, white supremacist and pro-Nazi views – and he does this because he wants to turn the clock back to a world where the concept of equal rights for all had yet to be accepted by the elites. Which, by the way, is what Donald Trump also wants to do.

How much money, or what ‘media value’ was ultimately put behind the Spoil Your Vote campaign? What coalition of global reactionary forces worked actively to create the impression of mass-scale disenchantment with the political process in Ireland? And how much was covertly spent by them – or by those to whom they are affiliated in the US, and the UK? What part did Russian disinformation and troll farms play? How much money did Meta, Google, X and TikTok make – not just in straightforward advertising, but from posts being boosted wily nily by unscrupulous right-wing vested interests? We will never know.

But it is the question that must be answered effectively within Europe, the UK and Ireland, if we want to avoid a catastrophic erosion of democratic rights and freedoms – a process which is already very clearly underway in Germany and the UK, in their draconian treatment of pro-Palestine demonstrations.

DISHONEST AND HATEFUL

Anyone with any kind of critical intelligence can see the inexorable, extremely well-funded and viciously amoral, push towards authoritarianism under Donald Trump in America. But Trump, the proto-fascists he has appointed to Government including JD Vance and Peter Hegseth, and the warped ideological minds behind Project 2025, who were vital to funding and driving the Trump presidential campaign, have made it quite clear that they want to attack the European Union, promote far right and fascist parties within it and do everything possible to undermine democracy. And they are using social media to achieve that end.

There are, then, two real stories to emerge from the 2025 Irish Presidential election.

The first is that the youth-driven, left vote held firm, in a way that certainly augurs well for the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, People Before Profit and Sinn Fein in the next general election. The message to the Government is that some kind of breakthrough in housing is imperative or they are doomed.

The second is that our democracy is being attacked by forces outside the country who are using social media and other monopolistic tech platforms, to drive support for the far right and stir up hatred of immigrants. They will moan about freedom of speech – but this is really to do with the freedom to spread lies.

At European level, we need politicians to wake up finally to the reality that the fascists have the money and the platforms. They are actively planning to use every lying, conniving, dishonest and hateful way they can dream up to destroy European democracy and the European Union.

Eurpean regulators must find the courage necessary to oppose Donald Trump and his mafioso tactics, take the tech bros on, and save us from what is – like Russia’s hybrid warfare – a deeply malign Virtual Invasion? Because if we let the American tech platforms dictate, democracy is doomed. Don’t say you weren’t warned.