It has been a strange week in Galway. The sun set on the Higginsian era. The sun rose on The Connolean Era. We lose one mainstay of our public representation over the past three decades, and welcome back one who has shaped the city for the past four. How fortunate are we, as a nation, to be able to replace one president with another and ensure that both destinations — the Áras and the city by the Corrib — are equally enriched for the exchange.
The presidency opens not with hesitation but with conviction. President Catherine Connolly’s inauguration speech was challenging, confidently delivered, and sculpted with the precision of a woman who has long known both the power and peril of words.
From her first moments as President, Ms Connolly made it clear that this would not be a passive presidency. “They have given their President a powerful mandate to articulate their vision for a new Republic,” she declared — and in doing so, transformed the traditional notion of presidential restraint into one of civic engagement. Her repeated use of the word they spoke volumes: this was not a presidency of distance, but of representation. The mandate, she implied, belongs to the people, not the officeholder.
The new President’s vision is anchored in inclusion. She spoke of a Republic “where everybody is valued, diversity is cherished, and having a home is a fundamental human right.” It was a bold and necessary restatement of principles too often treated as aspirations rather than obligations. She recalled the small group of “elected representatives and volunteers” who had faced “insurmountable challenges” during her campaign, defying the claim that her ideas were “too far out, too left.” If her speech is a guide, President Connolly intends to keep that radical edge — a presidency rooted not in political neutrality, but in moral clarity.
Her critique of the dominant political narrative — one that “silences, others, labels, and excludes” — set her apart from her predecessors, even as she paid them generous tribute. She mapped their presidencies across Ireland’s evolving landscape: Mary Robinson and the birth of inclusivity after the fall of the Berlin Wall; Mary McAleese and the hopeful architecture of peace; Michael D. Higgins and the moral repair after economic collapse. Then, turning the page, Connolly identified the challenges of her own time — the existential threats of climate change and conflict. “We cannot turn back the clock or close our eyes,” she warned. “Our actions or inaction will determine the world our children and grandchildren will inherit.”
Her use of the word genocide was deliberate, jarring, and morally uncompromising. Her defence of neutrality equally so — a promise to guard Ireland’s long peacekeeping tradition while urging alternative diplomatic pathways in an increasingly bellicose world.
Yet, amid the weighty politics of her address, Connolly grounded her presidency in language — literally. “Ligimis don Ghaeilge blathú,” she urged: let Irish blossom. She pledged that Irish would be a working language of the Áras, reclaiming what she called the “soul and spirit” of the nation.
If Mary Robinson opened and illuminated the windows of the presidency, Catherine Connolly seems determined to open its doors. Her presidency begins not with a whisper but a call to conscience. The Connolean Era promises to be one of courage, culture, and conviction — and if her first speech is any indication, Ireland is about to rediscover both its voice and its soul.
