Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly was present with her ‘like-minded’ supporters Mick Wallace and Clare Daly as the latter pair agonised about whether to run for the European Parliament in 2019.

The final decision was made at a gathering of trusted colleagues on the West Cork island of Cape Clear on Sunday, April 14, 2019 – just a day before the nominations window was to close.

In addition to Ms Connolly, others from the Independents 4 Change Dáil alliance were present – including then-Donegal TD Thomas Pringle and Dublin deputy Maureen O’Sullivan.

The trio met in Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork, in 2019. Pic: Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

They nearly left it too late. With stormy seas and cancelled ferries, Mr Wallace and Ms Daly were uncertain they could get back to register their candidacy.

Today, with her erstwhile colleagues toppled by the turbulence of their extreme positions, just Ms Connolly remains in office. And latest polls indicate the Independent TD has established a seemingly unassailable lead in the race to replace Michael D Higgins in the Áras.

But the legacy of those she once shared a Dáil alliance with – people she still says are like-minded supporters – continues to raise questions for Ms Connolly, who has campaigned for the Presidency in Donegal with former TD Mr Pringle.

Like Mr Wallace and Ms Daly, Mr Pringle has expressed controversial views in the past.

In April 2016, he told the Dáil he supported Brexit and hoped it would lead to the end of the EU. ‘While I do not agree with the reasons why the British have decided to have a vote… I hope they vote to leave,’ he said at the time.

A file photograph of Catherine Connolly and Clare Daly in 2024. Pic: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

‘Anything that brings forth the end of the European Union would be a good idea. If the British vote speeds that up, it would and should be welcomed.’

Ms Connolly was sitting beside him in the Dáil Chamber as he went on: ‘If we look at what this great union has done in the past two years, it has carried out two coups within its own member states, where it deposed an elected government in Greece and an elected government in Italy because they did not suit the great economic agenda of the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

‘That is the kind of union we want everybody to stay in and be part of, without mentioning the move within the EU towards the creation of a European army and the great vision [José] Manuel Barroso had of the EU in 2007 when he said we now have all the trappings of empire.’ Mr Pringle said he hoped ‘we can see the end of this union completely’.

A file photograph of Clare Daly, Catherine Connolly and Mick Wallace in January 2019. Pic: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

Rising to speak next, Ms Connolly stopped short of agreeing with Mr Pringle’s hope for an end to Europe sparked by Brexit.

Instead, she simply said: ‘I agree with Deputy Pringle that we should leave the sovereign state of England to make its own decision’, before moving on to speak about Syrian refugees.

Mr Pringle’s comments about the EU and Brexit – and whether or not they gave Ms Connolly cause for concern – have not been put to her in this election campaign.

Ms Connolly has often struggled to explain her position on the EU, a viewpoint dominated by her outright opposition to militarisation. Despite her claim to be pro-European, the TD voted against the Lisbon, Nice and Fiscal Treaties.

Thomas Pringle. Pic: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

In an interview on Virgin Media after the 2016 Brexit vote, Ms Connolly described the decision to leave the bloc as ‘the first step in exposing the EU’, adding: ‘I think it [the EU] is exposed again now, and I think it’s open for us to grab that opportunity and not let the right have the narrative or tell the story.

‘How could you possibly say that the EU is good as it stands when we have a country where we have to get permission to build homes for our people?’

Syria is another topic that has been raised throughout the Presidential campaign as a result of Ms Connolly’s trip there with Mr Wallace and Ms Daly, in 2018. At the time, sitting dictator Bashar al-Assad was engaged in a brutal civil war while Western sanctions were in place.

Ms Connolly defended the trip as a fact-finding mission and has had to concede she did not pay for it herself, as she initially claimed, when it emerged Dáil funding was used. She has never addressed claims Mr Wallace has made about Syria.

In April 2021, he echoed Vladimir Putin’s line of propaganda to deny Assad’s regime was behind a 2018 chemical weapons atrocity committed by Syria on its own people. He said, while attending a meeting of the EU Parliament’s committee on security and defence: ‘The so-called chemical attack which the US, France and UK used as an excuse to bomb Syria was most likely staged with the help of? a UK/US propaganda entity.’

Catherine Connolly. Pic: Tom Honan

Afterwards, Mr Wallace and Ms Daly were criticised by fellow MEPs for spreading ‘propaganda and fake news’ – claims they shrugged off.

Ms Daly told the EU Parliament in March 2020: ‘Listening to the relentless Russiaphobia in this place, why are people surprised Russia sees no point in engaging with the EU?’

In 2022, Mr Wallace said: ‘Nato is a negative element and has nothing positive to offer the people of Europe. Nato has nothing to do with peace…’

In China, state TV has featured Mr Wallace speaking positively about the country and negatively about the West, so much so that he is known as the ‘Golden Lion King’ among fans there.

Mr Wallace and Ms Daly’s support for Iran-based terrorists has also drawn criticism. In December 2021, Mr Wallace retweeted a post from the Iranian embassy marking the second anniversary of the ‘martyrdom’ of Qassem Soleimani.

Killed by the US in 2020, Soleimani was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) Quds Force. The IRGC has been designated a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US and Soleimani was considered the second most powerful figure in Iran.

That US attack also killed terrorist Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – considered by America and Kuwait to be behind the 1983 bombings of the US and French embassies in Kuwait.

Afterwards, Ms Daly retweeted a post from Iran’s embassy in Croatia. Naming al-Muhandis and Soleimani, she wrote: ‘Thinking today of #GeneralSoleimani & #AbuMahdialMuhandis unlawfully assassinated by the #US on this day two years ago..#Anti_terrorism_hero. Their heroic struggles against terrorism will never be forgotten… their legacy will prevail.’