Catherine Connolly is probably only intensifying an activist conception of the presidency that is by now well accepted. Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne - Pool/Getty Images
The most striking thing about President Catherine Connolly’s inauguration address was its boldly political tone.
Some of its earliest lines referred to the housing crisis – evoking “a home as a human right” – which might be seen as indirectly criticising Government policy.
Connolly unapologetically set out a vision of the presidency as a “catalyst for change” to shape a “new Republic that lives up to its name”. She certainly didn’t limit herself to the wholesome abstractions we usually expect of such events.
While Connolly clearly understands her election as giving her a mandate to exhort political change, she doesn’t see this as being limited simply to articulating high-level ideals, but rather as enabling her to speak truth to power, perhaps even as criticising Government policy failings.
Inevitably, some will criticise this strident vision as oversteppin
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