The “Keepie-Uppie” effect: How Catherine Connolly scored a record win in Ireland’s presidential election

Ireland’s new President, Catherine Connolly, succeeded in uniting the country’s notoriously divided left and achieved a record-breaking number of first-preference votes when she was elected in November 2025. For the left-wing, Irish-speaking independent activist, born to a family of 14 in social housing, this result was anything but predictable. Clare O'Donoghue Velikić tells the story of a campaign powered by energetic young volunteers, a candidate with real conviction, high-impact visual communications, and real moments money can’t buy.

The role of Irish President (Uachtarán, in Irish) is largely ceremonial. Governmental power lies in the primary house of parliament (the Dáil), which remains under the control of center-right parties, though our proportional “single transferable vote” electoral system typically results in parliamentary fragmentation, including multiple smaller parties and Independent members of parliament (known as TDs – Teachta Dála).

Catherine Connolly was both: originally elected to Galway City Council as a member of the small center-left Labour Party, she left the party following a dispute in 2006 and was elected to the Dáil as an Independent TD in 2016. She rose in prominence quickly as an outspoken anti-war campaigner, and subsequently became deputy speaker in Parliament, the first woman to hold the position. Her soft-spoken yet firm demeanour as Speaker, coupled with her fiery exchanges with government ministers in parliament, earned her respect across the left-wing spectrum of opposition.

A unifying figure

This ability to engage across a broad cohort proved pivotal when, in the summer of 2025, Connolly announced her candidacy for the upcoming Presidential election. By September, she had secured the backing of the center-left Labour Party, Green Party and Social Democrats, the far left People Before Profit, and Sinn Féin, Ireland’s largest leftwing party. For the first time, the fragmented parties of the left in Ireland were not only supporting each other through a voting transfer pact, but actively uniting behind a single candidate.

The Presidential nomination processes also managed to keep far right voices off the ballot. A prominent anti-abortion rights campaigner and an MMA fighter known for his anti-immigration rhetoric both failed to gain enough support to secure nominations.

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Unshakeable foundations

Connolly’s July announcement allowed the skeletons to depart her closet early, giving sufficient runway to develop clear and consistent talking points with which to respond to criticisms (such as regarding a trip to Syria during the Assad regime). By the final weeks of the election, there was no mud left to sling at Connolly: she had already become adept at batting it away.

Uncompromising in her values and integrity, Connolly refused to apologise or be bowed on positions she had taken in the past. Rather than harming her, her steadfastness illustrated strength and integrity as her opponents from the center-right faced scandal (Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin) or, perhaps worse, apathy (Fine Gael’s Heather Humphries).

More so than campaigning against her opponents, Connolly’s coalition across the left allowed each party to lean into her qualities which best appealed to their own voter bases. She could be a passionate activist for Palestine, an Irish-speaker, a workers’ rights campaigner: whatever flavour of Catherine suited best could be dialed up in party support, while she remained consistent in her own personal brand.

Playing to every campaigner’s strengths

The Connolly team took this diversity strategy into her own campaign tactics. Volunteer-staffed, her team brought the youth and vigour usually seen in referendums in Ireland, such as those for marriage equality and abortion rights (seismic national cultural moments which forged many campaigning careers, including my own).

Astute graphic design, both nostalgic and vibrant (akin to Mamdani’s campaign branding in New York), harked back to the activating, high-impact designs of the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment, when ‘Repeal’-branded apparel became highly desirable fashion.

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Adept campaign leadership succeeded in getting the best out of a young team of social media volunteers. It did this by dividing responsibilities by channel, mapping each to target audiences and accounting for the individual volunteer’s own channel preference. This resulted in a consistency of tone and enthusiasm of output across social media channels.

The ban on political ads by Meta came into force mid-campaign, meaning ads could not be used on Facebook or Instagram for persuasion or Get out the vote (GOTV) mobilization. The paid media focus instead was on list-building during the campaign’s early days; fundraising was a priority, including selling well-designed merchandise.

Winning votes and hearts

The early ad focus then gave way to an organic-only social campaign. The team faced the challenge of a candidate who was not a fan of social content production and did not want to appear in videos. Initial communications focused on taking existing footage from parliament and editing it into algorithm-baiting snippets.

Collaboration with Influencers – entirely organically – also proved impactful. A TikTok Stitch, brought across to Instagram, with social media comedian Garron Noone, managed to reach almost 800.000 people, 20 times the average content post reach. The most impactful media moment of Connolly’s campaign, however, illustrated how viral content can be created without influencers or a candidate’s own social media prowess.

Few in Ireland knew how athletic Catherine Connolly is: though she would discuss having run several marathons, she refused to be filmed roller-blading, despite pleas from her social team. But on a campaign walk-about in a schoolyard, when challenged by kids to a “keepie uppies” contest, Catherine could not resist. The footage of her keeping the football in the air far longer than most would manage (including the kids) has now entered Irish political canon – this was a decisive moment in the campaign that generated huge national admiration and affection for Connolly.

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Connolly won by a landslide, with 63.4%. The 914,143 votes cast for her was the highest number of first-preference votes ever received by an electoral candidate in Ireland.

It is sometimes suggested that the Irish electorate vote for the Dáil with their hand in their pocket, and the Presidency with their hand on their heart. But the lessons learned from this campaign – in terms of coalition-building, timing, messaging and staffing – will doubtless translate to subsequent parliamentary elections.