When President-elect Catherine Connolly made an understated entrance to the Galway West count centre in Salthill about 30 minutes after the ballot boxes were opened, everyone in the room knew she would be declared the tenth President of Ireland later that evening.

With one first-preference vote after another for the Shantalla woman being carefully laid out in front of tally people by count centre staff, it soon became clear that the Galway West TD and Independent candidate for the presidency was going to run away with it in her own constituency at least.

But word was also filtering through that there was a similar trend across the country. By 9.30am, as she cycled her pushbike from her Claddagh home to Salthill, she would have been in no doubt that her long but well-run campaign, expertly managed by fellow city woman Béibhinn O’Connor, had been a runaway success.

Smiling as she walked in the door alongside Returning Officer Marian Chambers Higgins, Connolly’s arrival sent reporters and photographers scrambling to snap a photo and get a word from the Galway woman who many ‘expert commentators’ wrote off as having little more than an outside chance when she announced her candidacy back in July.

In the three months since she revealed to the Galway City Tribune her intention to run, though, Connolly slowly but surely rose to become favourite – Paddy Power paid out on her win three weeks ago.

Caption: Catherine Connolly accompanied her aunt, Kathleen Flannery from the Claddagh, to vote at the polling station in St Nicholas’ National School, Claddagh, last Friday morning. Catherine and Kathleen are pictured with Ali Flannery, a granddaughter of Kathleen. It was Ali’s first time to vote in an election. Photos: Joe O’Shaughnessy.

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