2025 Irish presidential election
The 2025 Irish presidential election took place on Friday, 24 October 2025, to elect a new president of Ireland. The incumbent president, Michael D. Higgins, was term-limited, having served the maximum two seven-year terms permitted under the Constitution of Ireland. The nominated candidates were Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, and Heather Humphreys. All three were nominated by members of the Oireachtas rather than by county or city councils. The 1990 Irish presidential election had been the last to feature only three candidates, and also the last to feature no candidates nominated by councils.
Amid controversy over an unpaid debt to a former tenant, Gavin discontinued his campaign on 5 October. However, his name remained on the ballot, as a candidate can formally withdraw only before the ruling on nominations, which had taken place on 24 September. There had not been a two-candidate election since the 1973 Irish presidential election. Opinion polls carried out before the election predicted a significant advantage for Connolly.
Voting took place from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on 24 October. Following the release of preliminary tallies on 25 October indicating a landslide victory for Connolly, Humphreys conceded the election. The official result was announced at Dublin Castle shortly before 7:30 p.m. The final turnout was 45.8%. Of the valid votes cast, Connolly received 63.4%, the highest percentage ever received in a contested Irish presidential election. With 914,143 votes, she also recorded the highest number of first-preference votes ever received by an electoral candidate in Ireland. Humphreys received 29.5% of the valid votes and Gavin 7.2%. There were 213,738 spoiled votes, or 12.9% of the total votes cast, record numbers in Irish electoral history.
Connolly was elected and was inaugurated as Ireland's president on 11 November 2025, becoming the country's third female president, after Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese.
Procedure
Presidential elections are conducted in line with Article 12 of the Constitution and under the Presidential Elections Act 1993. The president is elected through instant-runoff voting. All Irish citizens entered on the current electoral register are eligible to vote. The 2025 election was the first presidential election since the 2023 establishment of the Electoral Commission.Dates
The Constitution requires the election to be not more than 60 days before the end of the term of the incumbent president, which for Michael D. Higgins is 11 November. On 3 September, James Browne, the minister for housing, local government and heritage, signed a ministerial order fixing the date of the election as 24 October 2025. The nomination period began at 10 a.m. on 5 September and concluded at 12 p.m. on 24 September 2025. The ruling on nominations took place at 3 p.m. on 24 September 2025. This was the last date upon which a candidate could withdraw from the election. The final day for voter registration was 7 October 2025.Nominations
To stand for election as president of Ireland, candidates must:- be a citizen of Ireland
- be at least 35 years of age
- be nominated by:
- *at least 20 of the 234 serving members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, or
- *at least 4 of the 31 county or city councils, or
- *themselves, in the case of a former or incumbent president who has served at most one 7-year term.
Candidates
The following candidates received sufficient nominations to stand as candidates. All three were nominated by Oireachtas members, rather than by councils.Candidate selection
Following the 2024 Irish general election, as well as the 2025 Seanad election, only three political parties had the 20 members of the Oireachtas required to nominate a candidate: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin. Labour, the next largest party in the Oireachtas, had 11 TDs and 2 senators. For other candidates to be nominated by Oireachtas members, support would have been required from members of smaller parties, independents or excess members of the three larger parties. When Met Éireann proposed storm names for the 2025–26 European windstorm season, it excluded names of those being discussed as potential candidates.Fianna Fáil
Except for Mary Robinson, every President of Ireland from 1938 to 2011 had been elected with the support of Fianna Fáil. Following the financial crisis and a heavy defeat at the 2011 general election, the party opted not to contest the 2011 presidential election in order to focus on rebuilding. In 2018, Fianna Fáil endorsed incumbent president Michael D. Higgins for re-election.Despite becoming the largest party in Dáil Éireann at the 2024 general election, Fianna Fáil lacked an obvious front-runner for the presidency in 2025, and in late June The Irish Times reported that there was no one longlisted for the party's nomination. In early July, Micheál Martin, Taoiseach and party leader, said that the party would only run a candidate who "would command a very broad consensus or would have a realistic opportunity of getting a significant vote". He expressed a preference for an individual who would transcend party politics and "represent the country well abroad and lead with some sort of moral authority." Party strategists believed Fianna Fáil's chances of victory would be better served by waiting until September to announce a candidate. Nevertheless, over the Dáil summer recess, speculation over the identity of Fianna Fáil's candidate was heated, owing to what the Irish Independent called a "presidency-shaped vacuum" of information, and pressure from a group of TDs for the party to run a political figure from its own ranks.
Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern had been the subject of presidential speculation for several years. After resigning from Fianna Fáil in the wake of the Mahon Tribunal findings in 2012, he rejoined the party in 2023, a move which was seen by political commentators as a possible precursor to a presidential bid. When asked by Virgin Media News in August, a majority of the party's TDs said they supported nominating him for the presidency. The political reporter Gavan Reilly told Newstalk that Ahern was likely to appeal to an older segment of voters but carried considerable baggage from the economic crisis and the Mahon Tribunal. Though he never formally declared his candidacy, Ahern continued to express an interest in standing throughout July and August.
Mary Hanafin, a former minister and party deputy leader, declared that she wished to stand for the presidency, but said that it was up to Micheál Martin to decide how the party would proceed. At an event at the MacGill Summer School in July, she said it would be an "insult to the office of president" if the party did not contest the election. Other Fianna Fáil figures who were the subject of speculation included Micheál Martin himself, MEPs Barry Andrews and Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, and former ministers and junior ministers Pat "the Cope" Gallagher, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Éamon Ó Cuív and Peter Power.
Outside of the party, there was speculation about wide range of figures from the law, academia, sport and elsewhere. These included Packie Bonner, Geraldine Byrne Nason, Colum Eastwood, Deirdre Heenan, Daniel Mulhall, Pádraig Ó Céidigh, Síofra O'Leary, Louise Richardson, and Niall Quinn. On 25 August, the Irish Independent reported that senior figures in Fianna Fáil had privately approached Jim Gavin, the former manager of the Dublin men's Gaelic football team and COO of the Irish Aviation Authority, to be the party's presidential candidate. Gavin, one of the most decorated managers in the history of Gaelic football, had served as an officer in the Irish Defence Forces on peacekeeping duty and chaired the Citizens' Assembly on a potential mayor of Dublin in 2022. He did not respond to a request for comment.
On the morning of 29 August, Billy Kelleher, MEP for South and former TD, announced in an email to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party that he would stand for the presidency. He emphasised his three decades of experience in politics and said that a number of his colleagues had asked him to stand. The Irish Times reported that Kelleher's candidacy would pose a challenge to others, as he enjoyed popularity at all levels of Fianna Fáil. Later that day, Fianna Fáil deputy leader Jack Chambers confirmed that Jim Gavin would also be a candidate, and both Chambers and minister James Lawless endorsed him. The following day, Micheál Martin also endorsed Gavin. He expressed surprise at Kelleher's decision to stand, and disputed the claim that Kelleher enjoyed the support of thirty members of the parliamentary party. Gavin formally announced his candidacy the same day, writing in a letter to the parliamentary party: "I believe that, in these turbulent times, Ireland needs a president who can bring people together and promote and represent our shared values and interests at home and abroad."
In the Irish Examiner, journalist Mick Clifford compared Micheál Martin's support for Gavin over Bertie Ahern to the selection of Mary McAleese as Fianna Fáil presidential candidate over Albert Reynolds in the 1997 election, while Ahern was party leader. Five days after Martin's announcement, Ahern confirmed that he would not be a candidate, claiming that he could not stand without the support of the Fianna Fáil leadership, and that Martin was "anti-me" due to "the economy and the Mahon Tribunal". In a 35-minute voice message to supporters, he claimed that Martin "threw the rest of us out" in favour of Jim Gavin. He also said that false claims had been made about his economic legacy, and that these had been "intensified" by a younger generation. This was seen by the Irish Independent as a reference to the musician CMAT, who had recently released a song attacking Ahern. Mary Hanafin also ruled herself out of the election following Martin's endorsement of Gavin, and criticised the leadership's lack of communication with her. The musician and humanitarian Bob Geldof briefly expressed an interest in being Fianna Fáil's candidate, but Martin said that he was committed to Gavin and would not be altering his support.
Nominations for the contest closed on 5 September, with Kelleher and Gavin as the only candidates. Gavin had significantly more public endorsements than Kelleher, who was not supported by a single cabinet minister. Kelleher criticised the decision of senior Fianna Fáil figures to endorse "early on", and disagreed with the claim that he was running to damage Micheál Martin's leadership. Through early September, there was intense lobbying of the parliamentary party by both campaigns. Kelleher supporter Pádraig O'Sullivan said that he believed the MEP had a route to win the nomination, despite Gavin's front-runner status.
On 9 September at Leinster House, a meeting was held of the party's TDs, senators and MEPs to select the candidate. Following ten-minute speeches by Gavin and Kelleher, there was a secret ballot, which Gavin won by 41 votes to 29. Kelleher endorsed Gavin following the result. After being nominated, Gavin, who had not previously expressed political views, said that he was a "centrist and a constitutional Republican", that he had supported same-sex marriage and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, and that he favoured removal of the Triple Lock. Media outlets suggested that Kelleher's unexpectedly strong showing might be a blow to Micheál Martin's leadership, but Martin disputed this, saying that a referendum on his leadership had already taken place at the last general election. RTÉ News suggested that Gavin's strongest characteristics were his "near untouchable" status in the GAA, his work ethic and his leadership skills, but that a reputation for seriousness and restraint, as well as a lack of appeal in rural Ireland, might hurt his campaign.
On 5 October 2025, Gavin announced that he was withdrawing from the election; this followed a presidential debate on RTÉ in which he was questioned on his failure to repay €3,300 owed by him for several years to a former tenant. Gavin's name remained on the ballot, as a candidate may only withdraw before the ruling on nominations, which took place on 24 September.