'I gave up the cigars': President Connolly recalls 'eureka' moment in Leeds 45 years ago

Irish president Catherine Connolly during a visit to Leeds University, as part of her official visit to the UK. Picture date: Wednesday May 20, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Jacob King/PA Wire

As she returned to her old stomping ground at the University of Leeds, President Catherine Connolly revealed that she had a “eureka” moment here as a student and kicked some bad habits.

Matty Walsh, who is setting up Leeds University’s Gaelic football club, had obviously done his homework and knew Ms Connolly was a former triathlete.

While she was not doing triathlons in Leeds, she did take up running here 45 years ago.

She said she had two “eureka” moments in college. One was to give up smoking cigars. 

“I was smoking too many and started training,” she said. “I did my first little run around Headingley Park, and I couldn’t run a mile. I said, ‘That’s it’.”

When Ms Connolly was starting her running career, the police were also running around trying to track down the Yorkshire Ripper, who was later unveiled as Peter Sutcliffe.

Jennifer Povey, senior archivist at Leeds University, had brought out the old college newspapers to show Ms Connolly some of the old reports published during her time in college.

“I remember they wanted a curfew on women,” Ms Connolly said.

Although the archives have been digitised in recent years, a search of Catherine Connolly’s name showed no results.

“She must have kept a low profile,” one staffer remarked.

Sarah Prescot, a library archivist at Leeds University, meanwhile, showed Ms Connolly tiny little manuscripts written in the 1830s by the Brontë siblings.

The small writing was to make it difficult for grown-ups to read.

Charlotte Brontë would have been just 13 when she wrote the stories, which the historian said contained “scandal”, in minuscule handwriting, in the books bound in an Epsom salt wrapper. The needle marks from the binding were still evident.

Moving towards a first edition copy of Dracula by Bram Stoker, Ms Connolly pointed out he was “our very own”, although we “claim” the Brontes too.

A handwritten letter from 1897 showed Stoker telling a friend he was “shamelessly” promoting his book.

“We were so excited to get this that we decided that the next exhibition in this room will be entirely about vampires,” Ms Prescott said. Ms Connolly replied: “I’ll skip that one.”

The final book on the table was a Seamus Heaney book, Station Island. It contains red marks through lines and paragraphs, where the poet had decided he wanted to change large parts of the poems in the already printed book.

Ms Connolly’s final event was in the Leeds Irish Centre, a place she said she wished she had visited more when she was in uni.

She noted the event was being held in the Claddagh Suite, a homage to her hometown, as she said that centres like this had become home away from home for the Irish in Britain.

After hundreds of hands shaken and dozens of communities thanked, she will return to her new home in Áras an Uachtaráin following her three-day trip.

But, unlike her last time in Leeds 45 years ago, there were no cigars, no running, and no eureka moments.