To view this video please allow JavaScript, and contemplate upgrading to an internet browser that helps HTML5 video
Up Subsequent
Earlier Web page Subsequent Web page
Raised by a single father who had seven sons and 7 daughters to feed in Galway to being swept to the steps of Áras an Uachtaráin in a record-breaking electoral victory, Eire’s new president, Catherine Connolly, has by no means adopted the standard script.
As a lifelong activist who most well-liked saving the world to doing housekeeping, Connolly just isn’t afraid to go in opposition to the consensus.
As a part of her marketing campaign path, she went viral for doing keepie-uppies with native youngsters — a snapshot of the heat and wit that carried her all the best way to the highest.
Rising up in a big household in a Galway social housing property, Connolly naturally learnt methods to hearken to completely different voices and opinions.
Join all the newest tales
Begin your day knowledgeable with Metro's Information Updates publication or get Breaking Information alerts the second it occurs.
Final month, she informed BBC’s Talkback programme: ‘I come from a background that put a really excessive worth on integrity and honesty.
‘My mom died after I was younger and I watched my father – probably the most sincere man – work each single week on our behalf to carry us up.’
Connolly was solely 9 years outdated when her mom all of the sudden died.
The tragic dying of her mom meant her widowed father, a plasterer who additionally took on small constructing jobs, needed to carry up all the youngsters.
In interviews, Connolly commends her two older sisters, who spent most of their teenage years taking care of their youthful siblings.
Connolly volunteered with two Catholic lay organisations the place she would carry meals-on-wheels to aged folks and clear their properties.
She lately informed podcaster Síle Seoige: ‘The joke was that I used to be out saving the world and never doing housekeeping at dwelling.’
This was when she first grew to become energetic in her neighborhood – one thing that she nonetheless carries together with her at the moment.
Connolly has at all times been an ally to the disabled and carers neighborhood as she stands with the marketing campaign to scrap means testing for each Carer’s Allowance and incapacity funds.
In 2023, she stood and opposed the federal government’s makes an attempt to introduce the Inexperienced Paper on Incapacity – a reform that will scrap the Work Functionality Evaluation and alter the eligibility standards for Private Independence Cost.
Connolly studied for a level in psychology with German earlier than taking the position of medical psychologist with a County Galway well being board.
As an alternative of taking over a everlasting position, she started doing evening courses to check for a regulation diploma. She certified as a barrister in 1991.
Earlier than she entered politics in 1999, in her early 40s, she married Brian McEnery and had two youngsters.
The now former president, Michael D Higgins, inspired Connolly to face for the Labour Celebration.
One in every of her causes for getting concerned was to handle the nation’s housing scarcity.
For 17 years, she served as a councillor in Galway.
She left Labour after she criticised them for not supporting her bid to run alongside Higgins within the 2007 basic election.
Earlier than lastly successful a seat in 2016, she had two failed makes an attempt to get elected to the Dáil (Irish Parliament) as an unbiased.
In 2020, she grew to become the primary ever girl elected to chair debates in parliament when she secured her position as Leas-Cheann Comhairle (Deputy Speaker).
Throughout her time on this position, she surprisingly managed to unite opposition events in opposition to the sitting authorities’s candidate.
Connolly united them once more together with her presidential bid, securing the assist of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, Individuals Earlier than Revenue and Labour.
Throughout her presidential marketing campaign, she confronted some criticism and judgment.
Heather Humphreys, her rival, accused her of hypocrisy for criticising repossessions whereas additionally representing banks as a barrister up to now.
Connolly additionally needed to defend her selection of hiring Ursula Ní Shionnain, who had lately been launched from jail for firearms offences.
She insisted no guidelines have been damaged.
Her 2018 journey to Syria was additionally judged as she got here into contact with an armed supporter of Bashar al-Assad, the previous president of Syria.
She insisted her group had no management over who attended the tour, and the journey was merely a mission to spotlight the harmful plight of refugees.
Regardless of these challenges throughout her marketing campaign, she had a landslide victory, securing greater than 914,000 first choice votes – a document in Irish presidential election historical past.
Now that Connolly is president, she has many guarantees she want to fulfill.
Connolly informed the BBC that Gaza was on the high of her checklist of issues, in addition to Irish unity.
In her acceptance speech, she mentioned: ‘I can be a president who listens and displays and who speaks when it’s mandatory.
‘I can be a voice for peace, a voice that builds on our coverage of neutrality, a voice that articulates the existential menace posed by local weather change, and a voice that recognises the great work being accomplished the size and breadth of the nation.’
Get in contact with our information group by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For extra tales like this, check our news page.
Remark now Feedback Add Metro as a Most well-liked Supply on Google Add as most well-liked supply