A year ago, before the Irish general election, Heather Humphreys quit politics. “I’ll be 65 next year”, she said, “and if I ran again I’d be nearly 70 by the end of the next Dáil term and I’m just not physically able to keep going for that long.”
Published: 16 October 2025
his year she is one of the last two standing in the presidential election and is being jeered at by opponents for not having stuck to her word.
Since I don’t expect many News Letter readers to be following Irish politics in great detail, it might be helpful to point out that she is running for a far more restful job than that of being an Irish TD and minister.
When my mother died in 1985, in my naivety – for I had lived in London for 20 years – I was baffled by the arrival of several telegrams from TDs expressing their distress.
My mother was “a-plague-on-all-your-houses” kind of voter who would cast her ballot for those she despised least, which could be difficult in a multi-seat system where your 20th preference could make a difference.
Those she avoided at all costs always included republicans (for she hated political violence) or supporters of Charles Haughey or any of his cohorts (because she loathed corruption).
In that since TDs were owned by their constituents, who expected them among their other onerous and multifarious caring duties to turn up to funerals – or at least telegraph their condolences – they erred on the safe side rather than lose an entire household by omitting to sympathise about their granny.
After 13 years travelling from her Cavan-Monaghan constituency and home, up and down to Dublin, and 10 in ministerial jobs that took her all over the country, Humphreys had had enough.
But after a rest, she yielded to entreaties to run for president, for although an election campaign would be taxing, if she lost she could go back to the farm.
If she won she would be in an interesting and well-rewarded job and could largely decide how much actual work she would do.
Having done very sensitively in charge of the commemorations of such contentious events as the 1916 rebellion and the civil war that followed, she would have no fear of being at the centre of ceremonial duties required of a president, including that of Supreme Commander of the Irish Defence Forces.
A Presbyterian, she has shown herself in all her public activities to be wholly non-sectarian.
The outgoing president, Michael D Higgins, who took advantage of his popularity to exceed his constraints, displayed over and over again his failure to be impartial and his admiration for left wing dictators.
I found him embarrassing, but inbetween lefty speeches he did at least sell the country as a place of poetry, song and complex history.
The prospect of a win for the even more left-wing and West-hating Catherine Connolly, Humphreys’ opponent, is grim for any responsible government.
She has been described by the acerbic Mairia Cahill as having “the air of a nun who has joined the convent but refuses to wear the habit”.
I hope the Irish electorate don’t make a terrible mistake.
