Do we like them?

Do we like Holly Cairns?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record with one old stain and a small expenses hiccup, but I found little on where she stands on trans issues.

Cairns grew up on a West Cork farm and did a master's in organic horticulture before running the family's organic seed business near Skibbereen with her mother. She came to politics through activism: she campaigned with Together for Yes on abortion rights, then helped set up a Social Democrats branch in Cork South West in 2018. It is an unusual route to a party leadership.

The rise was quick. She won a Cork County Council seat in 2019 by a single vote, was elected to the Dáil in 2020, and in 2023 was unanimously chosen as Social Democrats leader at 33, the youngest party leader in the Dáil. She was also the only woman elected to the Dáil from any Cork constituency in 2020.

The first scandal came just after her election. Old tweets surfaced from when she was 22, including a joke about the Pope being cyber-bullied and a crack about an abortion during the papal conclave. She told The Echo she apologised for the offence caused, said the wording was inappropriate, and that she regretted it. It reads as a young person's crude gag, and she owned it quickly.

The harm check comes up clean on what I could find. When photos emerged in September 2025 of her party colleague Eoin Hayes in a Barack Obama costume with blackface, she said plainly that blackface is a form of racism and that the party abhors it. She also called the situation indefensible, though she judged it in the context of a different time and kept Hayes in the party after his apology. Some will want a harder line on that. I found nothing from her on trans issues either way, and that gap is why this isn't a higher score.

The recent thing is small. The Irish Times reported she repaid about €8,500 in expenses the Oireachtas paid to her by mistake. A repayment that stands up as straightforward is a long way from a rort, though the story is worth knowing about. In May 2026 her party also won the Dublin Central by-election, which took it to 12 seats.