Adrian Kavanagh, First posted 1st July 2013 with updates as new candidate nominations announced. Any links in this post are to online announcements of candidate selections and are not specifically links to candidate webpages.

The second of my rolling blog posts in which I details the latest information as to candidate selections relating to the different political parties and grouping and/or candidate declarations (as in the case of the non-party grouping). The rule of thumb here was that I added party candidates only after they have been officially selected to run for the party  at a selection convention or by some other means of candidate selection. The post focused on the Sinn Fein candidate selections. Sinn Fein currently has fifty four City/County Councillors and seventy three Borough/Town Councillors. Despite the overall reduction in the overall number of local elected representatives, Sinn Fein will be confident of increasing its number of councillors especially in the wake of a series of promising opinion poll results over the past few years.

To contest the City and County Council elections in the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Fein have officially selected one hundred and ninety six 2014 Local Elections candidates across one hundred and thirty six different conventions/electoral areas (in the Republic of Ireland only) – 99.3% of the total number of (137) electoral areas. Killaloe is the only electoral area in the state that will not have a Sinn Fein candidate in these local elections. This marks a significant increase in Sinn Fein candidate numbers relative to the 2009 City and County Council elections, in which 149 candidates contested those elections for Sinn Fein.

Females account for sixty two (31.6%) of the officially selected Sinn Fein candidates, while one hundred and thirty four are male.

37.2% of these Sinn Fein candidates are currently holding seats on City/County Councils and/or Borough/Town Councils. Forty nine (25.0%) are currently members of City or County Councils and thirty four (including ten of these candidates who are also currently holding a seat on a County Council) are currently Borough or Town Council members. In all seventy one of the current list of Sinn Fein candidates hold seats on City/County or/and Borough/Town Councils.

The Sinn Fein candidates selected to contest the 2014 Local Elections include:

Melanie McAuley was selected to contest the Greystones electoral area, but has withdrawn from the contest. Nicola Lawless has been selected to replace her on the ticket. Grace Costigan was selected to contest the Stilllorgan electoral area, but has withdrawn from the contest. Simon Gillespie has been selected to replace her on the ticket. Paula Corr was selected to contest the Naas electoral area, but withdrew from the contest in March 2014. Eddie McCarrick was selected to contest Ballymote-Tubbercurry but his candidacy was subsequently withdrawn by Sinn Fein, an action that has been challenged in court by McCarrick. McCarrick subsequently won this case and rejoined the ticket. Pat Coughlan was selected to contest the Cork City North East electoral area but subsequently withdrew in March/April 2014. Pat Coughlan was selected to contest the Cork City North East electoral area but subsequently withdrew in March/April 2014. John Kavanagh was selected to contest the Pilltown electoral area but subsequently withdrew in April 2014 and was replaced by Melissa O’Neill.

* Only days before the elections, it was announced that Ennis candidate, Cathal O’Reilly, had resigned from the party over anti-Traveller comments he had made some years previously. However, he still remains on the Ennis ballot as a Sinn Fein candidate.

Thanks to Joseph Lynch, Justin Moran, Maurice Quinlivan, Ruairi Vallely, Mícheál Hughes, Seamus Coleman, Brendan Killeavy, David Cullinane, John Brady, An Phoblacht, Michael Conway, Tom Nolan, John Scott, Ross Carmody, Ailín Mac Conbhuí, Grace Costigan, DJ Moore, Captain Black, JJ Hurley and Evan Murphy for helping with some of the updates as to these Sinn Fein selections.