On a Monday evening in October, people gathered for a public meeting on neutrality in Thurles, Co Tipperary. Some had been out canvassing for presidential candidate Catherine Connolly and arrived wearing “Connolly don Uachtaránacht” T-shirts and “CC” badges.
When asked what motivated them to canvass, one attendee – who had never been involved in politics before – said it boiled down to one thing: neutrality.
This week, Connolly was inaugurated as 10th president of Ireland, having received the highest number of first-preference votes in presidential election history.
Considering that a January 2025 Ireland Thinks opinion poll found that 75 per cent of people support maintaining Ireland’s neutrality, it is hardly surprising that the presidential election returned a landslide victory for a candidate whose political career and election campaign focused heavily on doing precisely that.
Yet this simple truth – that neutrality is important to the Irish people – is repeatedly downplayed, dismissed or ridiculed by some voices in the media.
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