“And they say this country is flyin’ – but it’s not,” says Colm, a Co Monaghan bus driver.

He is speaking on the fringes of a rally for Independent candidate Catherine Connolly at The Diamond in Monaghan Town last week.

Decked out in running gear, he is among dozens seeking photographs, selfies and autographs from Connolly after she stumps in her rival the home county of her Fine Gael rival Heather Humphreys.

After posing with Connolly and his Dublin City Marathon finisher’s medal – and comparing finishing times with her – Colm outlines why he is supporting the Galway West Independent.

A “personal voter”, who backs candidates rather than parties, he speaks of how he is angry – not for himself – but for his three children who cannot afford to buy homes, particularly his daughter and her husband who returned from abroad and now live in the parental home.

He speaks of the “arrogance” of the Dáil.

[ Spoiled ballots hit unprecedented level as voters express anger at choice of candidatesOpens in new window ]

Connolly, he says, is a “lady” who had been “attacked” throughout the campaign.

“I’ve heard her talking and she seems to be there for the ordinary working-class people,” he says, before departing on his run, jogging out the road towards Cavan town which Connolly’s campaign team had already taken.

***

Connolly, who was elected as Ireland’s 10th president on Saturday evening by a margin of 63 per cent of vote to 29 per cent for Humphreys, was elected to the highest office in the land in large part by convincing voters such as Colm: those who feel that the country’s economic successes are stained by deeper inequalities, themselves the result of choices made by a remote political class.

An anti-establishment, avowedly left-wing TD, Connolly’s campaign energised the section of the electorate that was open to voting for her.

Enjoying the support of five political parties and left leaning Independents, Connolly surged as the campaign wore on.

She was matched against a lacklustre campaign from Fine Gael, the implosion of the Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin and a thin field which left many voters cold.

[ The winners and losers of the presidential electionOpens in new window ]

Her election is not a landslide victory driven by universal acclaim – voter turnout was low at 46 per cent (and there were 213,738 spoiled votes, almost 13 per cent of the total vote). But it was, nonetheless, a landslide.

The roots for this victory stretch back some time.

Connolly had been urged by those politically close to her to consider a run for Áras an Uachtárain as far back as 2020 or 2021, but she initially dismissed the idea.

She has said in recent interviews that in the last 18 months contacts from the public began to pile up, urging her to run.