President-elect Catherine Connolly said she's looking forward to sipping gin and elderflower tonic with Heather Humphreys. Photograph: Alan Betson

Born in 1950s Ireland, Catherine Connolly – from a family of 14 reared in a small council house in Galway – already had an impressive CV.

On Saturday, she was elected by a landslide to the highest office in the land.

The ninth child is now the 10th president.

A stunning victory in an extraordinary election.

It was a race between two functioning candidates and one loose runner careering around the course and causing untold misery to his inept connections (the Taoiseach and the Minister for Public Expenditure).

It was an election where people who weren’t on the ballot paper generated more heat and noise than the two women contesting it.

An exercise where aspiring presidents who didn’t make it to or through the nomination process became a whinge chorus of the disappointed, indignant, insulted and miffed.

Fine Gael had a stinker. Fianna Fáil had a meltdown.

Catherine Connolly sailed serenely through it all.

Along with the clown-car moments and positive canvassing set pieces, there were nasty undertones to much of the campaign.

But, as is ever the case in our increasingly brutal presidential elections, it was touching and uplifting at the very end.

When battle was done, Catherine was joined on the stage in Dublin Castle by her vanquished rival, Heather Humphreys.

The two women met privately in the State Apartments before the official result was announced.