Connolly practised as a barrister, mostly on the
Western Circuit, with a general practice, mainly in the areas of
family law and
personal injury law, from 1991 until she was elected to Dáil Éireann in 2016. Connolly joined the Labour Party after the
1997 general election. both were elected. In the same year, she was elected
Mayor of Galway, leading Labour into a power-sharing agreement with
Fine Gael and independent councillors.
National politics (2004–present) Connolly was a supporter of
Michael D. Higgins's unsuccessful campaign to run in the
2004 presidential election; she later voted to nominate
Dana Rosemary Scallon for that election. Connolly aimed to run in the
2007 general election as a running mate of Higgins in
Galway West, but the party opted to only run one candidate in the constituency. Higgins had reportedly considered retiring due to health concerns, but he allowed his name to go forward to contest the seat again; Connolly criticised Higgins for "dragging his heels" on the decision, describing the decision to only run him as "crazy" and saying the party "lost out on a great opportunity". She left the Labour Party and unsuccessfully contested the
2007 general election as an independent candidate, polling just over 2,000 votes. Connolly contested the
2011 general election again in Galway West, where she lost out on the last seat to
Fine Gael's
Seán Kyne by only 17 votes. She sought a full recount, which concluded after four days but did not change the outcome. Connolly was elected to Dáil Éireann for the Galway West constituency at the
2016 general election, when the Labour Party (of which she was formerly a member) lost 30 of its 37 seats, including its seat in Galway West, following an unpopular term in government. was co-opted as an independent to replace Catherine on Galway City Council. Connolly voted for
Richard Boyd Barrett for
Taoiseach when the
32nd Dáil first met. At the 32nd Dáil's second meeting on 5 April 2016, she made her maiden speech in which she criticised the
Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government Alan Kelly's handling of Ireland's homelessness crisis. Connolly sat on the Public Accounts Committee and was Chair of the Committee on the Irish Language, the Gaeltacht and the Islands. In 2018 Connolly joined
Clare Daly,
Mick Wallace, and
Maureen O'Sullivan on a visit to
Damascus,
Maaloula, and
Aleppo in
Syria. When launching her 2025 presidential campaign she defended this trip, commenting that she funded the trip herself and that she did not "utter one word of support for
Assad". However,
Politico observed that Connolly also refrained from criticising Assad at that time and later called for the removal of sanctions on his regime. Connolly contested the
2020 general election and was re-elected on the 12th count.
Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann (2020–2024) Connolly was elected the
Leas-Cheann Comhairle of
Dáil Éireann on 23 July 2020, in a surprise victory over Fine Gael candidate
Fergus O'Dowd, becoming the first woman to hold the position. In January 2021, Connolly criticised the Government for their handling of the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related matters). Referring to the
Taoiseach (
Micheál Martin),
Tánaiste (
Leo Varadkar) and
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (
Roderic O'Gorman) as the "three unwise men", she criticised the Government's failure to provide survivors of mother and baby homes the report before it was released to the general public. Connolly stated: "This document I have to hand is what the report looks like. I hold it up to show survivors because they do not have it. It is the executive summary with the recommendations and one or two other things. Not a single survivor has it. I have it since yesterday, when it was put in the pigeonholes of Deputies." In May 2024, during the campaign for the
2024 European Parliament election, Connolly endorsed Clare Daly in the
Dublin constituency and spoke at her campaign launch.
2025 presidential election and campaign Connolly confirmed on 11 July 2025 on
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta that she had decided to run for
president of Ireland and believed she had the necessary support. On 16 July, Connolly officially launched her campaign outside
Leinster House and confirmed she had received the minimum of twenty
Oireachtas nominations required to run for the office. Connolly emphasised giving a voice to ordinary people and tackling issues such as a
United Ireland,
climate change,
homelessness, and the normalisation of violence. In the election on 24 October 2025, Connolly won receiving 63.4% of the votes cast, the highest percentage any president has received since the creation of the role in 1938, in what was widely described as a
landslide victory. With 914,143 votes, she recorded the highest number of first preference votes ever received by a candidate in Ireland.
Endorsements Connolly's campaign was backed by the
Social Democrats,
People Before Profit,
100% Redress, and a number of
independent Oireachtas members. On 31 July, Connolly secured the backing of the
Labour Party. On 27 August, Labour TD
Alan Kelly said he would not support Connolly due to concerns about her policies on international relations. On 4 September,
Solidarity TD
Ruth Coppinger backed Connolly and on 19 September the
Green Party announced it would endorse Connolly's candidacy. On 20 September,
Sinn Féin announced its backing for Connolly's campaign. Connolly was also backed by both the
Workers' Party and the
Communist Party of Ireland, neither of which has any elected representatives.
Holly Cairns (Social Democrats),
Marie Sherlock (Labour), independent senator
Eileen Flynn,
Roderic O'Gorman (Green Party),
Paul Murphy (People Before Profit), and
Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin) all spoke at Connolly's campaign launch on 22 September endorsing her candidacy.
Campaign trail Connolly made a commitment to visit every
County in the
Republic of Ireland during her campaign. By 24 October, she had visited:
Wicklow on 7 August,
Louth on 30 August,
Sligo on 5 September,
Leitrim on 6 September,
Donegal on 12 and 27 September,
Carlow on 22 September,
Cork on 3 October,
Dublin on 5 October,
Tipperary on 10 October,
Waterford and
Wexford on 11 October,
Kildare on 14 October,
Meath on 15 October,
Kerry on 17 October,
Clare and
Limerick on 19 October,
Cavan,
Monaghan,
Longford and
Westmeath on 22 October, and
Roscommon on 23 October. Connolly attended several agricultural shows in August: the Bonniconlon Show in
County Mayo, the Ballyshannon Show in County Donegal, and the
Tullamore Show in
County Offaly. She came back to Offaly on a higher-profile visit for the
National Ploughing Championships in Screggan on 17 September 2025, where she was interviewed about rural and agricultural life in Ireland and her presidential candidacy. Connolly visited
Belfast on 28 August 2025; she said that citizens of
Northern Ireland should be permitted to vote in the presidential election, and the North was a "limb" cut off from the Republic of Ireland.
Nomination of Gemma O'Doherty in 2018 At her campaign launch, Connolly was questioned about her nominating
Gemma O'Doherty for the
2018 Irish presidential election. Connolly was one of eleven Oireachtas members who did so. Connolly said that she "doesn't regret her decision to sign O'Doherty's papers at the time", adding that she "did not know her personally but saw her as a journalist who had done some very good work in the past". In September 2025, Connolly stated she would not have nominated O'Doherty if it had been a few years later. Connolly said the trip was a "fact-finding mission" to see the harm that EU sanctions were causing to Syrian civilians. She visited a refugee camp in
Damascus and travelled to
Aleppo to meet the Chamber of Commerce and
UNICEF. Connolly said she did not support the Assad regime: "On no occasion had I anything to do with the government, nor did I ever utter one word of support for Assad". She also met Saed Abd Al-Aal, a commander of the pro-Assad
Free Palestine Movement militia, a group which human rights monitors have implicated "in atrocities and starvation siege tactics against Palestinian refugees". When her meeting with Saed Abd Al-Aal was pointed out, Connolly claimed that "[...] you have no control when you go to a country like that as to who will come into your presence or not. That's no endorsement of the [Assad] regime". Ní Shionnain had been convicted by the Special Criminal Court in 2014 after being arrested in a stolen van carrying weapons, one of which had previously been used in a murder, though there was no suggestion she was linked to that crime. Ní Shionnain, who holds degrees in early and modern Irish and in language planning, had been working on a PhD in new Irish language communities at the time of her arrest. Connolly said she assessed Ní Shionnain's suitability through recommendations from prison visiting committees and politicians familiar with her background, and that she understood Ní Shionnain had rehabilitated herself and was no longer active in Éirígí. Ní Shionnain's hiring was intended to support Connolly's work on the Oireachtas committee for the Irish language. Garda vetting was required for employment in Leinster House, but Connolly stated that the process was not completed during Ní Shionnain's six-month tenure, which ended when she left of her own accord. The hiring drew criticism from senior political figures, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Fine Gael's presidential candidate Heather Humphreys, who raised concerns about parliamentary security and the judgment of employing a former prisoner with past
dissident republican affiliations. Connolly and others, including former Fianna Fáil minister
Éamon Ó Cuív and Sinn Féin leader
Mary Lou McDonald, defended the decision as an example of rehabilitation, noting Ní Shionnain's further education and professional work since release, with Ó Cuív stating he had in fact recommended the appointment to Connolly. Connolly also expressed concern about the public disclosure of Ní Shionnain's identity, describing it as damaging to her privacy and questioning how and why the information was released. ==President of Ireland (2025–present)==