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The new president of Ireland was sworn in today. It is a largely ceremonial role, but the landslide victory of Catherine Connolly, a far-left anti-establishment figure, has shaken up Irish politics. In her inaugural address, she vowed to be a steady hand as well as a catalyst for change. NPR's Fatima Al-Kassab has this profile.
FATIMA AL-KASSAB, BYLINE: When Ireland's new president made her victory speech at Dublin Castle, she took to the stage and didn't speak in English.
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PRESIDENT CATHERINE CONNOLLY: (Speaking Irish).
AL-KASSAB: She began that speech in Irish, an Indigenous language that many politicians don't speak fluently. Even in Irish politics, it was an unusual way to start a speech by an unusual candidate. Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University, says Connolly is one of Ireland's most left-wing politicians.
GARY MURPHY: Everything in her background suggests radicalism. She's far to the left of pretty much every party.
AL-KASSAB: Connolly says her upbringing in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, shaped her views. One of 14 children, her mother died when she was 9, and she was raised by her father, a builder. Here she is telling BBC Radio about her early life.
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CONNOLLY: I watched my father, the most honest man, work every single week on our behalf to bring us up.
AL-KASSAB: She went on to be a psychologist, then a lawyer. She was in her 40s when she went into politics, first as part of Ireland's center-left Labour Party and then as an independent. In Ireland's parliament, she spoke out about the country's housing crisis and inequality. Her focus on these issues in her presidential campaign enthused younger voters, says Una Mullally, columnist at The Irish Times.
UNA MULLALLY: She was kind of speaking to a lot of younger people in particular who want the country to be different in terms of progressive values, better infrastructure to address the housing crisis.
AL-KASSAB: She was outspoken about global issues, too, Mullally says, and in particular her support for Palestinians.
MULLALLY: She was also a critic of militarization across Europe, and then very, very critical of what she would have characterized as genocide in Gaza. And because the Palestine movement is so large in Ireland, that was something that she really centered at the outset of her campaign.
AL-KASSAB: But some of her comments have raised eyebrows. She has accused NATO, of which Ireland is not a member, of warmongering and also said Hamas is part of the fabric of the Palestinian people. In a BBC interview, she explained why she thought Ireland's own history of British occupation was behind support for the Palestinian cause.
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CONNOLLY: Ireland has a unique history. We're a postcolonial country. We had a famine. That's still very much alive in our mind and in our DNA, and I think we need to use that to promote peace in the world.
AL-KASSAB: Aoife Moore advised Connolly on her press strategy.
AOIFE MOORE: Catherine was quite unknown, but the more people learned about her in a very unlikely way, the more they liked her.
AL-KASSAB: She says Connolly, who barely uses social media herself, became an unlikely star on TikTok. A video of her juggling a soccer ball on her knees with children in a Dublin playground went viral.
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AL-KASSAB: And a bit like Zohran Mamdani across the Atlantic, her branding tapped into cultural trends, says Mullally.
MULLALLY: I think that they also, either by accident or design, took some inspiration from Zohran Mamdani's campaign because her brand identity was inspired by traditional Irish shopfront signage, whereas Mamdani's obviously comes from the bodega signage aesthetic in New York City.
AL-KASSAB: While the role of president is largely ceremonial, Connolly's win is a success for the coalition of left-wing parties who backed her. That includes Sinn Fein, a nationalist party with past links to Irish republican militants, says Moore.
MOORE: I think the big winner out of the presidential campaign is going to be Sinn Fein now that the left wing has shown itself and the country that it can band together to elect someone that the country wants.
AL-KASSAB: Connolly's decisive win over the establishment candidate is a rebuke by voters to the two traditional parties who, between them, have ruled Ireland for over a hundred years.
Fatima Al-Kassab, NPR News, London. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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