Connolly’s Win Sparks Debate Over Northern Irish Right to Vote

Jessica Toal

DUBLIN — The night Catherine Connolly was declared Ireland’s 10th president, the courtyard outside Dublin Castle was awash with celebration. Connolly, long seen as one of the Republic’s most independent voices, cast herself not as the president of the 26 counties, but as the figurehead of an island whose political and cultural identities have always overflowed the neat borders drawn a century ago.

Yet 90 miles north of Dublin, where the border begins to snake through fields and towns, the mood was more complicated. For citizens in Northern Ireland who hold Irish passports, who call themselves Irish, and who watched Connolly’s election with pride, the moment was bittersweet. They had no say in the choice.

Her victory has reopened one of the island’s most quietly contested questions: should Northern Irish citizens be allowed to vote in Irish presidential elections?

A Democracy With Missing Voices

A recent survey of citizens across Ireland and Britain underscores the urgency of the debate. Nearly six in ten respondents (59%) believe Northern Irish citizens should have the right to cast a ballot in Irish presidential elections. A third oppose the idea, and fewer than one in ten remain undecided .

Awareness of the issue is almost universal. Some 97.4% of respondents said they knew Northern Irish citizens cannot vote for Ireland’s head of state — despite the Good Friday Agreement guaranteeing their right to hold Irish citizenship .

The arguments for inclusion are as much about identity as legality. “If you are living on the island of Ireland, you should be able to vote for your president,” one participant said. Another framed it more starkly: “The president of Ireland represents every Irish citizen and the island of Ireland — why should we be excluded?”

For many, the point is symbolic. The Irish presidency is not a policy-making office but a cultural one: a voice of the nation, an emblem of its people. As one respondent noted, “The role of the president is largely symbolic… If people in Northern Ireland feel a strong connection to their Irish identity, then why shouldn’t they have a voice?”

The Line of Opposition

Opponents, however, insist on the hard facts of jurisdiction. “Northern Ireland is in no way governed by the Irish president, so why should we have a say?” one said. Others worry about fairness: “If the vote from Northern Ireland manages to sway the vote in a different direction to what the republic wants, it won’t be fair.”

The resistance is rooted in the same paradox Connolly inherits: that the Irish nation is larger than the Republic’s territory, yet the Republic’s democracy stops at its border.

Generational Momentum

The survey suggests the future may not wait for political institutions to catch up. More than half of respondents were aged 18–24, and their responses leaned heavily in favour of extending the vote .

These are voices shaped by a generation of peace rather than violence, of mobility rather than division. They grew up crossing the border as casually as one crosses a county line. And they are now questioning why the right to identity stops short of representation.

“Someone living in Forkhill should have the same rights as someone living in Dundalk,” a border-town respondent said, collapsing geography into lived reality.

Connolly’s Inheritance

Connolly steps into a presidency that has often blurred the North–South divide. Mary McAleese, born in Belfast, once occupied Áras an Uachtaráin, embodying the idea that the Irish presidency belongs to the whole island.

Connolly herself has hinted that her presidency will be one of bridges rather than walls. Whether she addresses the voting question head-on will test not only her political instinct but the Republic’s democratic imagination.

For now, her election has forced the question back into the public square: who gets to choose Ireland’s voice to the world?

The survey responses suggest that, for many, the answer lies in a broader democracy — one that reflects the island in full, not just the Republic within it. As one respondent wrote, “We are given the right to identify as Irish, so why would we not have a say in the people who represent Ireland?”

An Island’s Next Debate

The story of Catherine Connolly’s presidency may well be written not only in Dublin, but in Newry, Derry, Armagh, and Belfast — in the places where Irish identity is claimed without Irish votes.

Whether or not the Republic chooses to extend the ballot, Connolly’s ascent has reminded the island that democracy is not only about governance, but about belonging.

And belonging, as one survey participant put it, “is not defined by lines on a map, but by who we are, and who speaks for us.”