Ireland elects youngest-ever leader: Simon Harris, 37

Term may be short-lived amid party’s troubles

LONDON — Simon Harris was three years into a university degree when he dropped out in 2008.

A job had come up as a parliamentary assistant to an Irish senator, and Harris, an ambitious 20-year-old from a coastal town in County Wicklow, south of Dublin, saw “an opportunity to try and make a difference,” he later told Hot Press, a Dublinbased magazine.

He never looked back. On Tuesday afternoon, at 37, he became the Republic of Ireland’s youngest ever head of government, the culmination of a swift political rise to a post he has long aspired to.

Speaking in front of the Parliament shortly after he was confirmed in the role, Harris said he accepted “this new role in a spirit of humility, ready for the challenge, and full of energy and determination about what can be achieved.”

“He’s always been hungry for this role,” said David Farrell, a professor of politics at University College Dublin, noting that although Harris was young, he was not lacking in political experience. “His career has been short, but it’s been meteoric.”

But Harris reached the top at a moment when his center-right party, Fine Gael, has stagnated in the polls. And unless he can revive its fortunes, his time as premier may also be short-lived.

By the end of March 2025, Ireland will hold a general election that could see Sinn Fein, the Irish left-wing nationalist party that won the popular vote in 2020, garner enough seats to form a government. Support for traditional parties has waned in the wake of a cost-of-living crisis and a severe housing shortage.

Harris was propelled to the leadership of Fine Gael by the surprise resignation of his predecessor, Leo Varadkar, last month. The party governs Ireland in coalition with two others, and Harris became taoiseach, or prime minister, because of a quirk of the coalition arrangement rather than a reflection of any national public endorsement.

Supporters say Harris — seen by many as an energetic and devoted politician — is up for the challenge of steering the government at a difficult moment. The senator who hired the 20-yearold Harris in 2008, Frances Fitzgerald, a Fine Gael member of the European Parliament, was the leader of the opposition in the upper house of Ireland’s Legislature at the time. She became his longtime mentor.

“I think the reason that he has gone so far over such a relatively short period is that he has always believed in the power of politics,” she said, adding: “He doesn’t necessarily do the obvious. What I admire most is that he has the courage to go with his gut.”

Harris was confirmed to the top job in a vote in Parliament on Tuesday, as his grandmother, parents, wife, and two children were in the gallery watching.

He said he would “not be standing here today” without the support of his parents and his wife, and then told his children, “I promise, being your dad will remain my most important job.”

Harris has already been nicknamed the TikTok Taoiseach because of his enthusiastic posting on the social video app. His account has earned nearly 2 million likes since he started it in 2021.

In one shaky selfie, he invites viewers to join him for a quick chat while out for a walk. A supercut overlaid with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Can’t Stop” was posted this week, showing Harris

holding babies and shaking hands while campaigning.

The videos can feel earnest and occasionally awkward. But there is an informality about them that may resonate with voters, analysts said.

“He is an excellent communicator, very articulate, quick on his feet,” said Eoin O’Malley, an associate professor in political science at Dublin City University. “And I think that is what people see in him.”

The millennial Harris has long embraced his youth as a selling point, analysts say. In 2018, while he was health minister, Ireland held a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, the constitutional provision that effectively banned abortion. Harris won plaudits from many young people for his prominent efforts in favor of repeal.

Years earlier, he had expressed a desire to keep the antiabortion measures intact, and Fitzgerald said his shift was not something that many would have anticipated. “I think I would describe him as someone who is very open to learning,” she said. “I think he listened to people, and he was learning firsthand as he listened to women’s stories.”

But that pragmatism can also be seen as a weakness, O’Malley said, noting, “It’s still very hard to know exactly what he is or who he is.”

The new premier will face steep challenges as he leads his party into local and European elections in June, and a general election next year.

Fine Gael came in third in 2020, while Sinn Fein — which has historically called for uniting Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, with the Republic of Ireland — won the popular vote for the first time, upsetting the long-standing dominance of Fine Gael and its traditional rival, Fianna Fáil.

Sinn Féin did not win enough seats to form a government, though, so the rival parties formed a coalition alongside the Greens.

Polls suggest that Fine Gael’s appeal has dropped further since 2020 as the coalition has faced growing criticism over a housing shortage and a backlash over immigration.

NEW TAOISEACH Harris will face challenges as he leads his party into local and European elections in June.