Ireland will elect a new president on October 24. But not all Irish people will get to vote. Residents of Northern Ireland are not eligible. A Northern Irish candidate can stand in the election – indeed, the Belfast-born Mary McAleese served as president from 1997-2011 – but not vote for themselves, unless they live in the Republic.
This time, one of the two remaining candidates in the race is an Ulster Protestant. Heather Humphreys is a Presbyterian from county Monaghan – one of three Ulster counties that were not included in the formation of Northern Ireland. She is, therefore, a “northerner” – albeit not from Northern Ireland.
Humphreys has sought to use this dualism – being “of Ulster”, but also “of the Irish republic” – to suggest that she understands both political traditions on the island, Ulster unionist and Irish nationalist. But this pitch, and more specifically Humphreys’s religious heritage, have also been turned against her.
