Adrian Kavanagh,  First posted 21st February 2024, with updates to follow as I become aware of new candidate declarations. 

This is the latest in my series of rolling blog posts, in which I detail 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) ahead of the 2019 City and County Council elections. This post will focus on non-party/independent candidates. Back in June 2019, the non-party/independents grouping accounted for one hundred and ninety four City/County Councillors, following on a very successful set of election contests for non-party candidates at the 2014 and 2019 Local Elections. Due to various defections to the non-party ranks from different political parties over the following months and years, the number of Independent/Non-Party City/County Councillors (as of 21st February 2024) has climbed to two hundred and four, according to my best estimates.

As of now (21st May 2024), there are five hundred and six non party/independent candidates listed here. The relatively low number of candidates listed on this page up to the close of nominations on 18 May (497 non-party candidates contested the 2019 Local Elections , for instance) merely reflected the fact that information about non party/independent candidate declarations can often be very hard to find, especially as there is no formal selection convention process involved here. (I also do not assume that sitting Independent Councillors will run again.) In a large number of cases (maybe amounting to well over one hundred cases), information about some independent/non party candidate declarations may only emerge after the formal period of candidate nominations has closed and the official candidate lists for the different electoral areas been drawn up (two weeks before the elections are due to take place).

One hundred and eight of these candidates are women (21.3%) and three hundred and ninety seven (78.5%) are men.

One hundred and fifty eight (31.4%) of these declared non-party candidates are currently incumbents (City/County Council members). 32.6% of the male Independent local election candidates listed here are incumbents, as opposed to 26.9% of female Independent candidates. Twelve of these incumbent non-party candidates (7.6%) were co-options. At least eleven (2.2%) other non-party candidates have previously held some form of electoral office.

The non party/independent candidates who are contesting these elections include the following people (Please note that, as in the other similar posts, any links that are provided here are to posts/newspaper reports offering “evidence” of their candidatures and will not link back to candidate websites, which I don’t do as there’s not enough time to do this for every candidate):

I will be adding to this list as and when I come across further declarations of intentions to contest these elections on the part of other non-party candidates. This cohort of candidates often tends to be the hardest to glean information on, so this list may not be as up to date/accurate as the similar posts for the different parties.

A number of people had declared an intention to contest the elections as a non-party candidate, but later withdrew, including Jane Suffin (Boyle), Daragh O’Flaherty (Galway City Central), Thomas Ryan (Clonmel), Maryam Temile (Cavan-Belturbet), Shawn Murray (New Ross), Keith McNamara (Carrick on Shannon)

Thanks to those who have helped fill in some of the missing gaps in this candidate list, including Majella Kavanagh, Patrick Matthews, Ciarán Mac Dermott, Padraig McEvoy, Ben Vallely, Paudie Taylor, Treasa Keegan, Paul Ryan, Paddy McKenna, David O’Leary and David Flynn.