2025 Irish presidential election

The 2025 Irish presidential election was held in Ireland on Friday, 24 October 2025, to choose the President of Ireland for a seven-year term. Catherine Connolly, an independent Teachta Dála from Galway and a former barrister, was declared elected at Dublin Castle the following night. Of 1,442,698 valid votes she received 914,143 first preferences, 63% of the valid poll, and was elected on the first count. She became the tenth person, and the third woman, to hold the office, succeeding Michael D. Higgins, who had completed the two terms allowed by the Constitution of Ireland.

The presidency is Ireland’s directly elected head of state. The ballot uses the single transferable vote: voters mark 1, 2, 3 and so on, and if no candidate has a majority the lowest-placed candidate is excluded and the next preferences on those papers are transferred. Three names appeared on the ballot. Connolly, who had declared in July, was first backed by the Social Democrats and People Before Profit; the Labour Party later endorsed her, and Sinn Féin, which did not run its own candidate, added its organisation. Heather Humphreys, a former cabinet minister, stood for Fine Gael after Mairead McGuinness withdrew, citing health. Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin, a political novice, left the campaign after a financial controversy but stayed on the ballot.

Humphreys received 424,987 votes (29% of the valid poll) and Gavin 103,568 (7%). Humphreys led in only one constituency, Cavan–Monaghan, which she had represented in the Dáil. Turnout was 45.83%, up from 43.87% in 2018. Returning officers recorded 213,738 spoiled or invalid ballots, 12.9% of votes cast, against 1.235% in the 2018 presidential election; in some Dublin constituencies about a fifth of papers were spoiled. An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission, said the number was far above normal, that some voters had spoiled papers deliberately, and that the reasons needed further study.

Connolly took office on 11 November 2025 at a ceremony in Dublin Castle, where Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell presided and she described the result as a mandate to make Ireland a “republic worthy of its name.” In office she said she would see that “all voices” were heard and would promote climate action, tolerance and a revival of Irish. The Constitution leaves day-to-day executive power with the Government; the president represents the people, appoints the Taoiseach and ministers on nomination, signs bills into law, and may refer a bill to the Supreme Court. Contemporary reporting treated the vote as a setback for the Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael coalition and as an unusual alignment of left-wing parties behind one candidate.

Background

The presidency

The 2025 election was for the office of President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann). Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland provides for a President who takes precedence over all other persons in the State and exercises the powers conferred by the Constitution and by law. The President is head of state, not head of government. Article 28 vests executive power in the Government, and Article 13.9 requires that presidential functions be performed only on the Government’s advice, except where the Constitution allows absolute discretion, consultation with the Council of State, or action on the advice or nomination of another person or body.

The President is elected by direct popular vote, in a secret ballot, using proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. Every citizen who may vote for Dáil Éireann may vote for President. The term is seven years, and a person who holds or has held the office may be re-elected once only. An ordinary election is held no earlier than the sixtieth day before the incumbent’s term expires, and no later than the date of expiry. A citizen who has reached the age of 35 is eligible. Unless the candidate is a former or retiring President, nomination requires at least 20 members of the Oireachtas or the councils of at least four administrative counties, including county boroughs. No member and no such council may nominate more than one candidate, and a sole nominee is elected without a ballot.

The President appoints the Taoiseach on the Dáil’s nomination and the other ministers on the Taoiseach’s nomination with the Dáil’s approval, summons and dissolves the Dáil on the Taoiseach’s advice, and signs Bills into law. In absolute discretion the President may refuse a dissolution to a Taoiseach who has lost majority support and, after consulting the Council of State, may refer certain Bills to the Supreme Court of Ireland. The official residence is Áras an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park.

End of the Higgins presidency

Michael D. Higgins was elected on 27 October 2011 as the candidate of the Labour Party. He led the first count with 701,101 votes and was elected on the fourth count with 1,007,104 votes. He was inaugurated on 11 November 2011.

At the election of 26 October 2018 he was returned on the first count with 822,566 first-preference votes, 55.8 per cent of a valid poll of 1,473,900, and began a second term on 11 November 2018. Article 12.3.2° barred a third term. The second term was due to end at midnight on 10 November 2025, with the successor entering office the next day, and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage fixed polling for 24 October 2025, inside that 60-day window.

Party landscape

The 34th Dáil, of 174 seats, was elected on 29 November 2024. RTÉ’s final tally was Fianna Fáil 48, Sinn Féin 39, Fine Gael 38, independents 16, Labour and the Social Democrats 11 each, Independent Ireland four, People Before Profit–Solidarity three, Aontú two, the Green Party one and 100% Redress one. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together held 86 seats, two short of a majority.

On 23 January 2025 the Dáil elected Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin Taoiseach by 95 votes to 76. Simon Harris, Fine Gael leader and the outgoing Taoiseach, became Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and for Defence. Their coalition, supported by independent TDs, adopted a programme meant to last five years, with Martin remaining Taoiseach until 16 November 2027 and the office then rotating to the Fine Gael leader.

Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Féin was the largest party outside that arrangement, with Labour, the Social Democrats, the Green Party and People Before Profit–Solidarity also in opposition. The presidency is not filled by the Dáil, but those totals shaped the nomination arithmetic: each government party had more than the 20 Oireachtas members required to nominate a candidate, and the opposition parties together also passed that threshold.

Electoral system

Franchise and the count

The President of Ireland is elected by direct popular vote and secret ballot, “on the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote”, under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland. Voters mark “1” for a first preference and may number as many or as few further candidates as they wish; names are alphabetical, with a photograph if one was supplied. The choice is national, but the poll is taken in the constituencies used for Dáil Éireann unless the Minister, by the date of the election order, directs that each county and county borough be used instead.

Article 12 limits the vote to citizens who may vote for the Dáil. In 2025 that was an Irish citizen aged 18 or over, ordinarily resident in Ireland and on the register; British citizens, who may vote in Dáil elections, may not. The electorate was about 3.6 million. Register applications closed on 7 October 2025, and postal and special-vote applications on 29 September. There is no general vote for citizens abroad. Postal voting is confined to set categories, including Garda and Defence Forces members, diplomats abroad and their spouses or civil partners, electors kept from the station by illness, disability, work, study or imprisonment, some polling staff and anonymous electors; hospital and nursing-home residents may vote where they live.

The Dáil returning officer in each constituency is the local returning officer and takes the poll and the count. A paper is invalid if it has no official mark, lacks one clear first preference, or bears a mark judged to identify the voter. The presidential returning officer divides the national number of valid papers by two, adds one and disregards any fraction. That Droop quota for a single seat elects a candidate who reaches it, as does a total greater than every other continuing candidate combined. Otherwise the lowest candidate is excluded and the papers pass to the next preference still in the count; the lowest candidates go out together if their combined vote is below the next candidate’s.

Nomination rules

A candidate must be a citizen who has reached the thirty-fifth year of age, which the Electoral Commission states as 35 or over. Except for a former or retiring president, who may self-nominate, a candidate needs at least 20 members of the Oireachtas — Dáil deputies or senators of Seanad Éireann — or the councils of at least four administrative counties, including county boroughs. Those councils are now county, city, or city and county councils, and neither a member nor a council may nominate more than one person. A president may be re-elected only once.

In 2025, papers were accepted from 10 a.m. on 5 September until noon on 24 September, delivered by the candidate, a nominator or a council official. Withdrawal was possible only before the ruling on nominations ended. The presidential returning officer then ruled at the place named in the order, with the President of the High Court, or another judge of that court, as judicial assessor. Questions of validity or eligibility could be put to the assessor and a ruling appealed to the High Court. One valid nominee is declared elected and no poll is held.

Administration and dates

Article 12 requires an ordinary election no earlier than the sixtieth day before the president’s term expires and no later than that expiry, and the order under the Presidential Elections Act 1993 must allow the successor to take office the following day. On 3 September 2025 James Browne, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, made the Presidential Election Order and appointed Barry Ryan, a principal officer in the department, as presidential returning officer at the Custom House, Dublin. The poll was on Friday 24 October 2025, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Electoral Commission published voter guidance; Ryan and the local returning officers conducted nominations, polling and the count.

Binding guidelines from the Standards in Public Office Commission capped election spending at €750,000 from 3 September to 24 October 2025 inclusive, to be controlled by each candidate’s election agent; exceeding the limit is an offence. A candidate who was elected, or whose highest total at any count exceeded one quarter of the quota, could recover the lesser of allowable expenses and €250,000, a maximum raised from €200,000 by ministerial order in 2025.

Nominations

Government-party selections

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the parties forming the government, each chose a nominee in an internal contest, separate from the constitutional nomination. That nomination period opened on 5 September 2025, after James Browne, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, signed the presidential election order on 3 September, and it closed at noon on 24 September. To reach the ballot a candidate needed signatures from 20 members of the Oireachtas—TDs or senators—or nominations from four local authorities.

Fine Gael’s nominations closed in mid-July with Mairead McGuinness, a former European commissioner and MEP, as the only name put forward. On 14 August she withdrew, saying that after a hospital stay, and on medical advice, she could not give a campaign her full strength before polling. Leader Simon Harris reopened the process. Former minister Heather Humphreys, who had left the Dáil, and Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly both sought the nomination. A contender needed at least 20 parliamentary-party members. Humphreys gathered declared support from more than 40; Kelly, stronger among councillors than among TDs and senators, withdrew on 1 September because he could not reach that number. Fine Gael confirmed Humphreys the next day as its sole nominee, with ratification on 13 September, and she qualified for the ballot through the party’s Oireachtas members.

Fianna Fáil had no standing procedure for a presidential candidate. For 2025 it required five nominations from its parliamentary party of TDs, senators and MEPs before a secret ballot of that body. Taoiseach and party leader Micheál Martin backed Jim Gavin, a former Dublin senior football manager in the Gaelic Athletic Association who held no elected office. Ireland South MEP Billy Kelleher gathered the five names needed to force a contest. On 9 September, after both addressed the parliamentary party, Gavin defeated Kelleher by 41 votes to 29. Kelleher said he would campaign for Gavin. Gavin’s place on the ballot came from Fianna Fáil Oireachtas nominations, not from councils.

Opposition and independent backing for Connolly

Catherine Connolly, an independent TD for Galway West, was the first person to assemble 20 Oireachtas signatures. In early July the Social Democrats decided that their Oireachtas members would nominate her. TDs from People Before Profit–Solidarity, and several independent TDs and senators, supplied further names. She launched her campaign on 16 July having reached the threshold of 20.

The Labour Party formally backed her on 31 July after consulting members, adding its TDs and senators to a candidacy already over the line. On 19 September the Green Party national executive endorsed her after taking views from members; leader Roderic O'Gorman announced the decision. The next day Sinn Féin’s ard chomhairle voted to support Connolly rather than run its own candidate. Leader Mary Lou McDonald, who had ruled herself out, said the party would campaign with the others already behind Connolly.

Connolly lodged her papers with the presidential returning officer at the Custom House on the afternoon of 23 September. Reporting described the coalition behind her as Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit–Solidarity, the Greens and independents, and said she had more Oireachtas nominations available than the minimum of 20.

Unsuccessful hopefuls

At noon on 24 September the returning officer was left with three valid nominations—Connolly, Humphreys and Gavin—the smallest presidential field since 1990. No candidate is reported to have qualified through four local authorities.

Maria Steen, a barrister and campaigner, tried both routes. She addressed councils but won no local-authority nomination; Fingal and Dublin City were among those that voted not to nominate anyone. For Oireachtas signatures she drew on Aontú, whose leader Peadar Tóibín helped organise support, on independent TDs and senators, and late in the effort on Independent Ireland’s TDs. Independent senator Aubrey McCarthy added an 18th signature on the morning of the deadline, saying this was not an endorsement of her views. Two short of 20, she did not lodge papers. She called the consensus against her nomination “oppressive”; Martin rejected the claim that keeping her off the ballot was undemocratic.

Businessman Gareth Sheridan was nominated by Kerry County Council and, the next day, by Tipperary County Council, and by no other authority. He stopped on 22 September after Offaly County Council voted not to nominate a candidate, two councils short of the four required. Cork City councillor Kieran McCarthy, a former lord mayor of Cork, received only Waterford City and County Council, which nominated him by 11 votes to 10 on 19 September. Fine Gael instructed its councillors not to back independent hopefuls, and Fianna Fáil councillors also generally opposed nominating non-party candidates, so most of the 31 local authorities nominated nobody.

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern had sought a route through Fianna Fáil. In early September he said he would not enter the parliamentary-party contest and would not stand as an independent, citing his loyalty to the party and the leadership’s support for another candidate. Conor McGregor withdrew on 15 September from an attempt to obtain council nominations, without having secured one. Others who used the council route and did not reach four authorities included entrepreneur and 2018 presidential candidate Peter Casey.

Candidates

Three candidates were on the ballot for the 24 October 2025 election of a successor to Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland: the independent Teachta Dála Catherine Connolly, Fine Gael's Heather Humphreys, and Fianna Fáil's Jim Gavin. When nominations closed on 24 September, no other contender had the support of 20 members of the Oireachtas or four local authorities required to stand.

Catherine Connolly

Connolly was born in 1957 in Galway and was 68 during the campaign. She was one of 14 children in the Shantalla housing estate; her father was a carpenter and boatbuilder, her mother died when Connolly was nine, and older sisters helped raise the younger children. She took a psychology degree at University College Galway and a master's in clinical psychology at the University of Leeds in 1981, then worked as a clinical psychologist. She later took a law degree at the University of Galway in 1989, qualified as a barrister in 1991, and practised mainly in family law until she entered the Dáil. She married Brian McEnery, a former woodwork teacher, in 1992; they have two adult sons.

She was elected to Galway City Council for the Labour Party in 1999 and served a one-year term as mayor of the city. She left Labour in 2006 after the party would not run her alongside Higgins in Galway West, then stood unsuccessfully as an independent in 2007 and, in 2011, fell 17 votes short of Fine Gael's Seán Kyne. Elected a TD for Galway West in 2016, she held the seat in 2020 and 2024. In the Dáil she sat on the Public Accounts Committee and chaired the committee on the Irish language, the Gaeltacht and the islands. In 2020 she was elected Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the first woman in that post, defeating the government nominee, Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd.

She confirmed a presidential bid in July 2025 and was nominated with the backing of Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit–Solidarity and the Green Party. A fluent Irish speaker who improved the language as an adult, she presented herself as a left-wing independent focused on housing, military neutrality and the war in Gaza. She was declared elected on 25 October 2025 and inaugurated that November as Ireland's tenth president, and the third woman to hold the office.

Heather Humphreys

Humphreys, 65 at the time of the campaign, is from Drum in County Monaghan and was a TD for Cavan–Monaghan from 2011 to 2024. A Presbyterian, she has described herself as "a proud Ulsterwoman, a Protestant and an Irish republican"; her father was in the Orange Order and her grandfather signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912. Before politics she worked for Ulster Bank and as manager of Cootehill Credit Union in County Cavan. She is married to the farmer Eric Humphreys and they have two daughters.

She was first elected to Monaghan County Council in 2004, topped the poll in 2009, and served as county mayor before taking Seymour Crawford's former Dáil seat in 2011. In 2014 Taoiseach Enda Kenny made her Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, including the 1916 commemorations, which she said "belong to everybody" and should respect all traditions. Weeks later she was criticised for appointing John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art while he was a Seanad by-election candidate; he left the board, and she later called the appointment a mistake.

She stayed in the culture portfolio after the 2016 election and, later in 2017, became Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. From 2020 she was Minister for Social Protection, overseeing pandemic income supports and later welfare increases, and Minister for Rural and Community Development; in 2021 she also held the justice brief while Helen McEntee was on maternity leave. Simon Harris appointed her Fine Gael deputy leader in 2024. That October, aged 64, she said she would not contest the general election, citing her energy and a wish to spend more time with her family. After Mairéad McGuinness withdrew on health grounds, Humphreys — who had earlier ruled herself out — became Fine Gael's nominee, campaigning on unity, community and opportunity and on her Border background.

Jim Gavin

Gavin, aged 54 during the campaign, is from Clondalkin in Dublin; his parents are from County Clare. He played Gaelic football for Round Towers Clondalkin and for Dublin, winning an All-Ireland senior medal in 1995, and managed the Dublin county team from 2012 to 2019. Over those seven seasons Dublin won six All-Ireland titles. He later chaired the Gaelic Athletic Association's Football Review Committee, which changed the game's scoring rules.

He joined the Defence Forces in 1990 at 18 and spent two decades in the Irish Air Corps as a military pilot, including as chief flying instructor, chief pilot of the ministerial air transport squadron, and chief of military aviation on the United Nations mission in Chad and the Central African Republic. He left the Defence Forces in 2011. He later became chief operations officer of the Irish Aviation Authority, with operational responsibility for air safety in Ireland, and in 2020 Dublin conferred its freedom of the city on him. In 2022 he chaired the Citizens' Assembly on whether Dublin should have a directly elected mayor, and in 2023 he was appointed to chair the North East Inner City taskforce.

Gavin had not previously held elected office. On 9 September 2025 the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party selected him over MEP Billy Kelleher by 41 votes to 29, after an endorsement from Taoiseach Micheál Martin. On 5 October 2025 he withdrew from campaigning, saying he had made a mistake he was taking steps to address and that he was concerned for his family's wellbeing; his name stayed on the ballot.

Campaign

Issues and debates

Independent TD Catherine Connolly, Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys and Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin campaigned for the 24 October 2025 election until Gavin withdrew from the trail on 5 October. Housing, Irish neutrality, the war in the Gaza Strip, immigration and Irish unity were the main subjects of the debates. The first televised debate, on Virgin Media’s The Tonight Show on 29 September, covered homelessness, Gaza, immigration and peacekeeping.

Connolly, supported by Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit, called housing “the defining social crisis of our time” and said she would be a “voice for peace”, warning of a “building consensus” to weaken neutrality. She told the BBC that Gaza came up on the canvass more often than Irish unity, and that she would “love to see a united Ireland”, with a first official visit to Northern Ireland, by consent. On 22 September she rejected British prime minister Keir Starmer’s view that Hamas should have no role in a future Palestinian state, saying Hamas was “part of the fabric of the Palestinian people”; Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Hamas had “broken every humanitarian law and cannot be part of Gaza’s future”. At the Virgin Media debate she called “saying the country is full” abhorrent. Unlike Humphreys, she speaks the Irish language fluently; an Irish Times poll nonetheless found that only 3 per cent named speaking Irish as the quality that mattered most.

Humphreys launched on 13 September at the Peace Campus in County Monaghan on “community, unity and opportunity”. A former minister for social protection, she said she would celebrate volunteers, take Áras an Uachtaráin to the people, and use the presidency for reconciliation north and south. She called events in Gaza “absolutely horrific” and backed removing the United Nations requirement from the triple lock on deployments of more than 12 soldiers, while saying she believed in neutrality. She said she would vote for unity under the Good Friday Agreement without setting a date, and cited a Protestant border upbringing, including Orange parades her family later stopped.

Gavin, a former Dublin GAA football manager, launched in Dublin on 28 September saying every section of society should have a voice, in both a “rising Ireland” and communities in difficulty. He criticised “extremes” for misusing the tricolour, whose white stripe he called a mark of “inclusion, dignity and respect”. In debate he said housing performance was “simply not good enough”, that a president could not build houses, and that the triple lock had blocked new peacekeeping since 2014; he said he was proud of neutrality and of his own peacekeeping service.

Connolly’s record drew sustained criticism. The Irish Times reported that €3,691 entered under Syria in her 2018 return to the Standards in Public Office Commission came from her parliamentary allowance and had paid for a visit made, with TDs including Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, while Bashar al-Assad was still in power. At her launch she had said “I funded that trip”; she later said that meant the allowance, not personal money, that she met no member of Assad’s government and never supported him, and that meeting sanctioned politician Fares al-Shehabi had been a mistake in retrospect. Humphreys accused her of hypocrisy over barrister work for banks. Connolly said she took “all types of work”, and on RTÉ’s Prime Time on 21 October confirmed she had acted for credit institutions. She defended employing Ursula Ní Shionnáin, an Éirigí activist sentenced in 2014 to six years for firearms offences, as an Irish-language adviser and a “model example of rehabilitation”.

Withdrawal of Jim Gavin

The Irish Independent reported that a former tenant was owed about €3,300 in rent overpaid on a Smithfield flat Gavin and his wife had owned. On RTÉ’s The Week in Politics on 5 October, Gavin said he was “looking into” it and that “if it happened I’m very sorry”. That night he withdrew “with immediate effect”, saying he had “made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself” and citing his family. The tenant, Sunday World deputy editor Niall Donald, said the money kept being taken after he left in May 2009 and was never returned. Martin called the withdrawal “the correct one”, and on 8 October apologised to the parliamentary party and said he was “devastated”. Jack Chambers, the director of elections, said Gavin had denied any tenant dispute when asked on 8 September, before his selection.

Nominations had closed on 24 September, so his name stayed on the ballot. The Department of Housing, after consulting Attorney General Rossa Fanning, confirmed that the law did not allow a later removal; some of about 15,000 postal ballots had already been sent, and votes for Gavin were to be counted as valid, not spoiled. On 10 October a source close to Donald said the €3,300 had been repaid without conditions. Martin said he would vote for Humphreys but would not direct Fianna Fáil supporters.

Disinformation and the protest vote

In September, Meta removed deepfake videos, which Bank of Ireland called fabricated by artificial-intelligence cloning, appearing to show Humphreys and RTÉ presenter Kate Egan endorsing an investment scheme. On 21–22 October, clips styled as RTÉ News, with deepfakes of Sharon Ní Bheoláin and Paul Cunningham, falsely showed Connolly withdrawing and, in another clip, claimed that most ballots were being spoiled. The platforms removed them. Connolly called the withdrawal video a “disgraceful attempt to mislead voters and undermine our democracy” and complained to the Electoral Commission, which urged caution about online claims.

A “Spoil the Vote” campaign said the three-name ballot offered no centrist or centre-right independent. Barrister Maria Steen, who secured 18 of the 20 Oireachtas nominations needed and was not a candidate, said she was not involved. Declan Ganley, listed as a campaign leader, said he would write “1 Maria Steen” on his paper. The count recorded 213,738 invalid ballots, about 13 per cent of votes cast, compared with 18,438 in 2018; messages concerned immigration and crime as well as Steen’s name. Steen said she was “grateful and humbled”, called the total a “big rebuke” to parties she accused of blocking competition, and said other grievances written on papers should not be read only as support for her.

Opinion polling

National voting-intention polls published after nominations closed at noon on 24 September 2025, and before polling on 24 October, covered the three-candidate contest for President of Ireland. Headline percentages are shares of all adults interviewed. Many were undecided, said they would not vote, or said they would spoil their ballot, so those figures are not directly comparable with shares of valid votes.

Polls before the withdrawal

The first major national survey after the field was fixed was a Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll published on 5 October, the day Jim Gavin, the Fianna Fáil candidate, stopped campaigning while remaining on the ballot. It put independent Catherine Connolly on 32%, Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys on 23% and Gavin on 15%, with 31% undecided, in a sample of 1,430 (stated margin of error 2.6 points). He withdrew late that evening.

Final weeks

A Business Post/Red C online poll of 1,001 adults, taken from 2 to 7 October and so overlapping the withdrawal, was reported by RTÉ on 11 October (margin of error plus or minus 3 points): Connolly 36%, Humphreys 25%, Gavin 12% and 27% undecided.

An Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll taken entirely after Gavin stopped campaigning interviewed 1,200 adults face to face on 12–14 October (margin of error plus or minus 2.8 points) and was published on 16 October. Connolly had 38%, Humphreys 20% and Gavin 5%; 18% were undecided, 12% said they would not vote and 6% said they would spoil their ballot. Excluding those three groups left 60%, 32% and 8%, and Gavin’s remaining supporters divided second preferences roughly evenly.

Red C’s next online survey, of 1,012 adults on 16–21 October, put Connolly on 44% (up eight points), Humphreys unchanged on 25%, Gavin on 10% (down two) and undecided voters on 21%; excluding the undecided, the shares were 55%, 34% and 11%. An Irish Independent/Ireland Thinks poll, from interviews on the afternoon of 22 October and published on 23 October, had Connolly on 40% (up eight on that series’ early-October survey), Humphreys on 25% and Gavin on 7%, with 28% saying they did not know, would not vote or would spoil their ballot. Removing that group, Ireland Thinks estimated 55%, 35% and 10%.

Dates	Poll	n	Connolly	Humphreys	Gavin	Other
Published 5 Oct	Ireland Thinks	1,430	32%	23%	15%	31% undecided
2–7 Oct	Red C	1,001	36%	25%	12%	27% undecided
12–14 Oct	Ipsos B&A	1,200	38%	20%	5%	18% undecided; 12% not voting; 6% spoil
16–21 Oct	Red C	1,012	44%	25%	10%	21% undecided
22 Oct	Ireland Thinks	—	40%	25%	7%	28% undecided, not voting or spoil
24 Oct result	Valid votes	1,442,698	63.36%	29.46%	7.18%	213,738 spoiled

Poll rows are shares of all respondents; the result row is each candidate’s share of 1,442,698 valid votes (Connolly 914,143, Humphreys 424,987, Gavin 103,568). Turnout was 45.83% of an electorate of 3,614,450. Every poll had the same order as the count. With undecided respondents, non-voters and intended spoilers removed, the Ipsos shares (60%, 32% and 8%) were closest to the valid-vote result; the final Red C and Ireland Thinks estimates both had Connolly on 55%, and the 6% who told Ipsos they would spoil a ballot was below the 213,738 ballots spoiled.

Results

National count

Catherine Connolly was declared elected President of Ireland on the first count. Polling was on Friday 24 October 2025, and the result was formally declared at Dublin Castle the following evening. The presidential returning officer recorded an electorate of 3,614,450 and a total poll of 1,656,436, a turnout (the returning officer’s “percentage poll”) of 45.83 per cent. Of those papers, 1,442,698 were valid and 213,738 were spoiled. The quota was 721,350.

Connolly, an independent, received 914,143 first preferences, 63.36 per cent of the valid poll and 192,793 votes above the quota, so the returning officer’s result contained no transfer of surpluses or excluded candidates’ votes. Heather Humphreys of Fine Gael received 424,987 votes (29.46 per cent). Jim Gavin of Fianna Fáil, who had withdrawn on 5 October but whose name stayed on the ballot, received 103,568 (7.18 per cent). Those three totals sum to the entire valid poll. RTÉ reported the same votes to one decimal place as 63.4, 29.5 and 7.2 per cent.

Candidate	Affiliation	First preferences	Share of valid poll
Catherine Connolly	Independent	914,143	63.36%
Heather Humphreys	Fine Gael	424,987	29.46%
Jim Gavin	Fianna Fáil	103,568	7.18%
Valid poll	—	1,442,698	100%
Quota	—	721,350	—

RTÉ described Connolly’s share of the valid poll as greater than the previous first-preference highs of 56.3 per cent for Éamon de Valera in 1959 and 55.8 per cent for Michael D. Higgins in 2018. Her 914,143 first preferences also exceeded Higgins’s 822,566 in 2018, when he too was elected on the first count. That election had a valid poll of 1,473,900, a quota of 736,951, a total poll of 1,492,338 and a turnout of 43.87 per cent. In 2011 Higgins’s 701,101 first preferences, from a valid poll of 1,771,762, left him short of a quota of 885,882; he was elected only on the fourth count, with 1,007,104 votes, from a total poll of 1,790,438 and a turnout of 56.11 per cent. Gavin’s 7.18 per cent left Fianna Fáil below the 12.5 per cent support required to reclaim election expenses.

Geography

The national total was aggregated from 43 Dáil constituencies. Humphreys finished first only in Cavan–Monaghan, the constituency she had represented as a TD, with 58.7 per cent of the vote to Connolly’s 38.3 per cent on RTÉ’s rounding, so Connolly led in the other 42. The local returning officer, Joe Smith, gave the underlying count: an electorate of 107,048, a total poll of 59,317 (turnout 55.41 per cent) and 52,894 valid papers, of which Humphreys took 31,075 (58.75 per cent), Connolly 20,273 (38.33 per cent) and Gavin 1,546 (2.92 per cent), with 6,423 papers invalid.

The highest share reported for Connolly was 79 per cent of the valid vote in Dublin South-Central, against 15.7 per cent for Humphreys. In Connolly’s own constituency, Galway West, she took 76.8 per cent to Humphreys’s 18.4 per cent.

RTÉ’s regional turnout figures were 47.9 per cent in Connacht–Ulster, 45.9 per cent in Leinster, 45.3 per cent in Dublin and 45.1 per cent in Munster. By constituency, the Irish Times reported the highest turnout in Cavan–Monaghan (55.41 per cent), then Wicklow (51.65 per cent) and Roscommon–Galway (51.25 per cent); Galway West, at 48.99 per cent, ranked fifth. The lowest was Donegal, at 39.76 per cent, followed by Dublin South-Central at 41.08 per cent and Dublin Bay South at 41.86 per cent.

Turnout and invalid votes

The 45.83 per cent turnout was higher than the 43.87 per cent of 2018, which the Irish Times called the lowest in any presidential contest, and lower than the 56.11 per cent of 2011. The same report attributed part of the increase to organised online appeals to cast a ballot and spoil it, and quoted University College Cork political scientist Theresa Reidy: Connolly’s campaign had brought out younger voters, while others participated because they were angry at how few names were on the paper.

Invalid papers were the other distinctive feature of the count. The 213,738 spoiled ballots were 12.9 per cent of votes cast, compared with 18,438 in 2018, which RTÉ put at 1.2 per cent of that year’s poll (and, in a separate report, at 1.235 per cent), and with 18,676 spoiled papers in 2011. The highest constituency shares identified by RTÉ were in Dublin North-West at 20.5 per cent, Dublin Mid-West at 20.2 per cent and Dublin South-Central at 19.0 per cent. Cavan–Monaghan’s invalid share, 10.83 per cent, was below the national figure even though turnout there was the highest in the country.

An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the electoral commission, said the number of spoilt votes was “significantly higher than normal” and that some voters had clearly spoiled their papers on purpose. It said there would “clearly be a need for deeper and further reflection”, and pointed to its National Election and Democracy Study and a post-election review, both then still to be published. Reidy told the Irish Times that coverage had concentrated on graphic messages, but that most invalid papers were simply marked with an X across the ballot or through the preference boxes; she also noted that six candidates had stood in 2018 and seven in 2011. The commission said separately that turnout had beaten many analysts’ expectations, but that a “significant body of work” remained if participation was to rise further.

Aftermath

Reactions and the count

The count on 25 October 2025 confirmed Catherine Connolly as President of Ireland. She received 914,143 first-preference votes, about 63 per cent of the valid poll, to about 29 per cent for Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys and about 7 per cent for Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin, who had withdrawn but remained on the ballot. Turnout was about 46 per cent; Humphreys led only in her former constituency of Cavan–Monaghan.

Humphreys conceded at the Cavan–Monaghan count, calling Connolly “a president for all of us” and “my president”, and said she had “absolutely not one regret” about having “stepped up to the plate”. She said she and her family had faced “awful sectarian abuse”, and that discussion of a united Ireland required respect for other traditions. At Dublin Castle the candidates greeted one another after the declaration. Outgoing president Michael D. Higgins telephoned to congratulate her and offered his office’s help before the 11 November inauguration.

Connolly said she would serve those who had voted for her and those who had not, as “a voice for peace” building on Irish neutrality, and that a republic needed “constructive questioning” to “shape a new republic” valuing diversity and the Irish language. Taoiseach Micheál Martin called the result an “outstanding honour” and “a very clear mandate”.

Returning officers recorded 213,738 invalid papers, close to 13 per cent of all ballots, against about 1 per cent in 2018. Messages on papers included “not my president” and the names of people who had failed to be nominated. Martin called the figure a “concern”, described the nomination rules as “a bit restrictive”, and said any change would have to be agreed with other parties, while rejecting blame directed only at Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Tánaiste Simon Harris said voters had gone to considerable effort to spoil ballots, and that the country would then unite behind the winner. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald called it a “stunning victory” for the combined opposition over the “jaded worn-out politics” of the government parties, and tied spoiling to anger that candidates had been blocked.

Inauguration

On 11 November 2025 Connolly was inaugurated in St Patrick’s Hall at Dublin Castle, the setting for every such ceremony since 1938. Chief Justice of Ireland Donal O'Donnell read the declaration in the Constitution of Ireland; she repeated it in Irish, signed it and received the presidential seal. A 21-gun salute was fired from Collins Barracks after a service of prayer and reflection.

Martin, Harris, Higgins, former presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, and Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill attended. Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly did not, citing Remembrance Day commitments; Democratic Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson said the absence of a party representative was not a snub.

Connolly said voters had given a “powerful mandate” for “a new republic, a republic worthy of its name where everyone is valued and diversity is cherished, where sustainable solutions are urgently implemented, and where a home is a fundamental human right”. She invoked neutrality and peacekeeping since 1958, noted the Remembrance Day date, and promised inclusive dialogue on unity by consent, beginning with a visit to Northern Ireland. Irish, she said, would not be spoken “in a low voice” in Áras an Uachtaráin but would have “first place” as a working language. She then reviewed a Defence Forces guard of honour, lunched at the Áras, and returned to the Castle for a state reception.

Reviews and reform

Fianna Fáil’s review of the Gavin candidacy, published on 16 December 2025, recorded that tenant queries were put to him before his selection on 9 September and that he denied any dispute; he later quit the campaign after it emerged he owed a former tenant more than €3,000. The review estimated the cost at €350,000 to €400,000. His 7.2 per cent left the party short of the threshold for reclaiming expenses, reported at up to €250,000. Martin said the process was “not correct”, that deadlines should be fixed, and that he took “full responsibility”, but he would not table a confidence motion. The parliamentary party meeting was tense; ministers backed him and no immediate challenge developed, though some critics said the row was not over.

No comparable Fine Gael report drew the same coverage. An Irish Times account instead described the Humphreys campaign as aimed at turning out the party’s own voters.

On 22 October, before polling, Aontú moved in the Dáil to lower Oireachtas and council nomination thresholds, extend the presidential vote to Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, and bring the Áras under freedom-of-information law. Independent Ireland backed the motion. Minister James Browne said the government would not oppose it, and that nomination or franchise changes required referendums.

In March 2026 the Electoral Commission (An Coimisiún Toghcháin), in a study of 1,312 people, found that 12 per cent said they had spoiled a ballot: 45 per cent of them cited dislike of every candidate and 27 per cent an unfair selection process. Sixty-nine per cent were dissatisfied with the choice; 52 per cent thought the nomination rules about right, 30 per cent too hard and 6 per cent too easy. Its April 2026 administrative review recommended clearer guidance on classifying invalid papers, not a change to the constitutional thresholds.