HEATHER HUMPHREYS HAS said that she and her family were subjected to ”toxic, targeted sectarian abuse” by a minority who “tried to weaponise my identity” during the 2025 presidential campaign.

The former Fine Gael minister, who lost out to Catherine Connolly in last year’s election, is a Presbyterian who was raised on a rural farm in Drum near the Cavan-Monaghan border. 

During her campaign, she spoke about how she attended Orange Order parades with her parents as a child but stopped going when the Troubles broke out.

After losing the election, Humphreys said sectarian abuse that she and her family had faced had been “very difficult” and disappointing “because as a country I thought we had moved on from that.” The abuse was condemned across the political spectrum. 

Writing in the Irish Times today, she said she stepped forward to run in the election ”out of a deep love for this Republic and as an Irish woman committed to uniting this island”.

But, she said, her campaign “exposed an undercurrent of something we can’t ignore”.

“My family and I were subjected to toxic, targeted sectarian abuse. We experienced malicious online smears, videos generating tens of thousands of views. It was implied that my tradition was somehow inherently un-Irish or incompatible with modern civic life.”

Humphreys said she was “depicted as a lesser Irish person” because of her cultural background and religion, and her Irishness and commitment to the country “were questioned because of my background”.

Even though we are all Irish citizens and hold Irish passports, I was left with painful questions about whether there is a hierarchy of Irishness.

She also said it sent “a deeply troubling signal” to Protestant, unionist and loyalist communities across the island.

“They were forced to look at the Republic and ask themselves if there is a place for them here, or whether the ‘new Ireland’ remains riddled with the prejudices of the old.”

‘Lack of awareness and understanding’

Humphreys does not regret running in the election, but she regrets the hurt it caused “to many people who perhaps thought we had moved on further than we have”. 

“I don’t believe that the underbelly of naked and nasty sectarianism changed the outcome of last year’s election. However, I do believe the election highlighted issues that we must address if we are ever to achieve a united island.”

The 66-year-old said sectarianism must be immediately called out and social media companies must be held accountable “for vitriol amplified by a digital ecosystem that profits off polarisation and lies”.

She also called for better education about culture and traditions in the North, highlighting “a lack of awareness and understanding when it comes to the nuances of unionism, loyalism, Orange lodges and marching bands”.

She said the majority of people in the Republic are worried about the normal day-to-day realities of life like getting the children to school or the price of petrol and “aren’t spending their days contemplating when a Border poll might happen or what a so-called united Ireland might look like”.

But she said if we ever want to achieve a genuinely united island, all traditions must be respected. 

“We must continue to build an Ireland that is confident in its culture, honest about its history and brave enough to make room for every tradition on this island.”