133 Cardinal electors from 71 different countries are a part of the Conclave who will elect the next Pope, with proceedings set to begin on Wednesday afternoon, May 7.
There are currently 252 Cardinals in the Catholic Church, but only 135 are eligible to vote in the Conclave, as a Cardinal must be younger than 80 years old to vote.
According to Vatican News, two Cardinals have confirmed they won’t be able to attend the Conclave for health reasons, bringing the total number of Cardinal electors to 133.
Voting on the new Pope is due to begin on Thursday. To elect a new Pope, a two-thirds majority is required, meaning that for this Conclave, at least 89 votes are needed out of 133 electors.
This will be the first Conclave with more than 120 Cardinal electors. During his tenure, Pope Francis appointed 108 of the 135 eligible Cardinal electors.
There is currently only one Catholic Cardinal in Ireland - Co Cavan native Cardinal Seán Baptist Brady, Archbishop emeritus of Armagh. At 85 years old, he cannot vote in the Conclave.
Only one of the Cardinal electors - Kevin Farrell, currently the Camerlengo of the Catholic Church - was born in Ireland.
While there are no other Irish-born Cardinal electors, there are several Irish American Cardinal electors - read on to learn about them.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke
A native of Wisconsin, Burke, now 76, was made a Cardinal in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.
According to EchoLive, Burke's grandmother Hannah O'Keeffe left Cullen in Co Cork in 1910 and settled in Wisconsin, where she met and married John Burke, who had roots in Co Tipperary.
In 2010, Burke returned to Cullen and celebrated mass in the village’s parish church along with nine other members of the clergy.
"I thank God for the gift of my life and faith, which is so connected to this place," he said in his homily.
“I always think of Ireland with gratitude, because my grandparents brought the Catholic faith to the USA, and they and my parents nurtured it in a very steadfast way in the home and the wider community.
“The older I became, the more grateful I became for the way the faith was handed down from grandparents and parents to the next generation.”
In 2013, the Irish Times reported that the staunch conservative said: “I was raised in an Irish Catholic family which had a keen sense of the moral law.
"I go back to Ireland regularly and there are many wonderful people in Ireland hungering for leadership.”
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe)
Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Dolan was appointed the tenth Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. He was elevated to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Speaking at Maynooth University in Ireland in 2013, Dolan said: “My great-great-grandparents came from Cavan and Leitrim in the mid-19th century, desperately joining hundreds of thousands of other emaciated Irish fleeing the anguish of the Famine."
Dolan regularly visits Ireland, often leading pilgrimages there. In 2023, he received the special Buan Chara Award at the Spirit of Kylemore Awards in New York for his continued advocacy and support of the Benedictine nuns of Kylemore in Co Galway.
August 14, 2015: Cardinal Dolan saying Mass at Knock Shrine in Co Mayo. (RollingNews.ie)
Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell
77-year-old Farrell is a native of Drimnagh in Dublin and holds dual Irish and American citizenship.
From 2002 through 2007, he served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, and from 2007 to 2017, he was the bishop of Dallas. He was appointed as a Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2016.
Farrell is currently the prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, President of the Commission for Confidential Matters, and President of the Committee for Investments.
In 2019, he was appointed as Camerlengo of the Catholic Church, which sees him playing a key role in the running of the Vatican following Pope Francis' death on April 21.
Kevin Farrell in 2018. (RollingNews.ie)
Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy
71-year-old McElroy was born in San Francisco, California. In 2022, he was appointed to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis and in January 2025, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy the eighth Archbishop of Washington on January 6, 2025.
The Catholic Standard reported that during a St. Patrick's Day Mass on March 17 at St. Patrick Church in Washington, DC, McElroy said: "It is wonderful to be here today celebrating Catholic history and the Irish people," noting that an Ancestry DNA test revealed that he is "majority Irish."
McElroy went on to reflect on a visit to Dublin, which included a stop at EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum.
"Christian hope is distinctive," McElroy said, inspired by the stories of immigrants he learned about in Ireland.
"It is not optimism or the belief that everything will work out. Christian hope is the belief that, in all the experiences of our lives, God is present.
"Each of these immigrants was filled with that hope, trusting that God was with them on their journey. That hope is what we celebrate today, the legacy of St. Patrick and the missionaries who brought faith to Ireland."
Cardinal McElroy. (Archdiocese of Washington)
Cardinal Joseph William Tobin
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Tobin became Archbishop of Indianapolis in 2012 and, later, Archbishop of Newark in New Jersey in 2017. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2016.
73-year-old Tobin is understood to have links to Co Kerry. In 2016, he said: "My dad’s mother immigrated to Boston and came from a rather poor, passionate and rollicking group of shanty Irish."
That same year, he told Scala News: "I think the first experience I have with immigrants is I’m the grandson of immigrants. My grandmother came from Ireland and she spoke English well but she always prayed in Irish because she wasn’t sure God understood English."
In 2010, Tobin oversaw a portion of the Apostolic Visitation of the Church in Ireland.
November 19, 2016: Cardinal Tobin at St. Peter's Basilica. (Getty Images)
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