“It’s a fait accompli for Heather,” one Fine Gael Minister said.

In advance of Fine Gael reopening its nominations for presidential candidates on Monday night, the support for former minister Heather Humphreys to run for Áras an Uachtaráin among councillors, TDs and Senators was overwhelming.

Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly or people close to him have for days, across various media outlets, been coyly breadcrumbing his desire to run.

Kelly may be once-bitten, twice shy about making his intentions known, after already ruling himself out in July. But if he were to put himself forward, it is difficult to see his path to nomination, given the need for him to secure the support of at least 20 members of the Fine Gael parliamentary party.

There was little evidence that Kelly had used the weekend to lobby TDs and Senators, with a number of Leinster House politicians saying they had not yet heard from him.

While the party is respectful of the former GAA chief’s record as a quota-bursting poll topper in the European elections, the momentum behind Humphreys seems unassailable. “It’s absolutely no disrespect to Seán,” said a TD, “it just says more about Heather.”

Humphreys does not seem to have been actively lobbying TDs or Senators but she doesn’t need to.

By Monday afternoon, the former Fine Gael deputy leader and Cavan–Monaghan TD was still yet to confirm her intention to run for president.

Yet many in Fine Gael kept talking in the future tense about what her campaign “will” be like. Some confided they had been given the impression that the party had succeeded in changing the former minister’s mind about running, while other politicians were more pragmatic. “I think people are just manifesting,” one said.

Fine Gael is electrified at the prospect of having a Border-county Protestant running for the Áras.

Particularly given the mounting optimism within the party’s ranks that 2025 is its first, best chance to finally win the coveted constitutional role, which carries so much prestige as a symbol of national unity and cultural identity.

Fine Gael councillor and former lord mayor of Dublin Emma Blain told The Irish Times she was supporting Humphreys.

“It’s the right time for Heather,” said Blain, a former editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette. “She would be a shared-island candidate, who as president would be beneficial to the whole island”.

Though Fine Gael is jealously guarding Mairead McGuinness’s record and reputation out of respect for its erstwhile front-runner, some concede that Humphreys is starting to seem like an overlooked obvious choice. Her island-traversing record as communities minister and her prominent role in the 1916 commemorations all now seem like kismet, for the blooming campaign behind the woman who insisted she didn’t want to be president.

If it comes to it, Fine Gael remains relatively relaxed about the prospect of a contest between Kelly and Humphreys for the nomination, with party figures making emollient noises about “healthy competition”. Though there’s some anxiety about time, others feel a contest would inject pace into what had been a lethargic slouch towards September.

In Kelly’s home kingdom of Kerry, there was some disquiet about Fine Gael’s presidential candidate being decided by those above in Dublin. “Remember one thing, Fine Gael headquarters have not a good track record when it comes to nominating presidential candidates,” Kerry councillor Bobby O’Connell said.

Fellow Kerry councillor Michael Foley added that “what’s more than that, they got it wrong here in Kerry in the general election too”.

O’Connell said a competition between the two would be the best and fairest for the party and the base. “I think it should go to a convention,” he said. “And, if you’ll pardon the pun, let the best man win.”