Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses

Adrian Kavanagh, First posted 6th July 2018 with updates as new candidate nominations announced. Any links in this post are to online announcements of candidate selections – there will be no specific links to candidate webpages.

The second of 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). The rule of thumb here is that I will add 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 (such as additions by party headquarters) and not on the basis that “they are virtually guaranteed to run/be selected…” This post will focus on the Sinn Féin candidate selections.

According to my best estimates, Sinn Féin currently has one hundred and forty one City/County Councillors. The party won one hundred and sixty seats at the 2014 Local Elections, but a number of defections from the party over the following five years has reduced their overall number of City/County 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. The changes in electoral boundaries, and particularly the overall reduction in constituency district magnitudes, may work for, or against, Sinn Féin in terms of translating support levels into seat level, depending on the party geography of support at next year’s elections and on vote transfer patterns.

As of now (7th May 2019), two hundred and thirty Sinn Féin local election candidates are listed on this page. 

Seventy eight of these candidates are women (33.9%) and one hundred and fifty two of these are men (66.1%). As far as I am aware, at least one hundred and sixty three Sinn Féin selection conventions have taken place so far, meaning there are still three electoral areas that have not yet got Sinn Féin candidates listed as contesting them on the list below: Gort-Kinvara (Galway), Adare-Rathkeale (Limerick) and Westport (Mayo).

One hundred and thirty (56.5%) of these selected Sinn Féin local election candidates are currently incumbents (City Council or County Council members). Thirty (23.1%) of these Councillor candidates were co-opted to replace former Sinn Féin Councillors over the five year period since Local Elections 2014. 61.2% of male Sinn Féin local election candidates are incumbents, as opposed to 46.2% of female Sinn Féin local election candidates.

The candidates that have been officially selected to contest the 2019 Local Elections as Sinn Féin candidates include:

Cllr. Danielle Twomey was selected to contest the East Cork electoral area in January 2018, as reported by the East Cork Journal (27th January 2018) – this electoral area was subsequently replaced by the new Midleton electoral area when local election boundaries were redrawn in June 2018. Louise Murphy was selected as a Sinn Féin local election candidate for Cobh at a convention in the Commodore Hotel in Cobh on 19th January 2018 (as reported by the East Cork Journal (19th January 2018)).

As reported on the Talk of the Town website (16th November 2018), selection conventions for the three electoral areas located in the north/mid Louth area took place on 15th November 2018. The Tralee Today (18th November 2018) website reports that the two party incumbents were selected to contest the next local elections in the Tralee electoral area doe Sinn Féin. As reported on the Tralee Today website (17th November 2018), a number of other selection conventions took place In Kerry (Listowel, Kenmare and Killarney) in the days leading up to the Tralee convention. The party selection conventions for the four local electoral areas in Westmeath County all took place on 28th November 2019 (Cllr. Úna D’Arcy was selected to run at these conventions, but announced she was leaving the party in January 2019), with the convention for the Carrick on Suir electoral area also taking place on that same day. Selection conventions for electoral areas in the Dublin South-Central Dáil constituency area took place in the last week of November 2018.

The selection convention for the Cavan-Belturbet electoral area took place on 1st December 2018, as reported on the Northern Sound radio website (1st December 2018). Grace Doyle was selected as the candidate for the Piltown electoral area on 3rd December 2018., while Cllr. David Kennedy was selected to contest Callan-Thomastown on that same day. The party selection conventions for the three local electoral areas in Longford County also took place on that day. The selection convention for the Mallow electoral area took place on 5th December 2018, while the conventions for the electoral areas in Waterford County took place on 7th December 2018 (Michael Doyle and Leslie Hughes were selected as second candidates in the Waterford City East and Tramore-Waterford City West electoral areas at a second convention on 21st January 2019.). The Kilkenny City selection convention took place on 10th September 2018, while the selection convention for Nenagh took place on 9th December 2018, as reported on the Tipperary Live (11th December 2018) website. The selection convention for the An Daingean electoral area took place on 10th December 2018 in Lispole, as reported on the Radio Kerry website (11th December 2018). Selection conventions took place for the electoral areas in Limerick City on 10th December 2018, with conventions in Cork City South East on 11th December 2018 and in Clondalkin and Palmerston-Fonthill on 12th December 2018 and in Ennistymon on 13th December 2018. Selection conventions for the two Tallaght electoral areas, Cork City South Central electoral area and the Swords electoral area all took place on 14th December 2018. Cllr. Cathal King was selected to contest Tallaght South at this convention, but decided to move to contest Tallaght Central when the initially-selected Cllr. Brendan Ferron decided that he would not be contesting the elections after all. On 13th February 2019 it was decided that Paddy Holohan would take Cathal King’s place on the Tallaght South candidate slate.

The selection convention for the Borris in Ossory-Mountmellick electoral area took place on 17th December 2018. The selection conventions for the Ennis and Fermoy electoral areas took place on 18th December 2018, while the conventions for the two Bray electoral areas took place on 19th December 2018, as reported on the WicklowNews website (20th December 2018). As reported by the Leinster Leader (21st December 2018), the Athy selection convention took place on 20th December 2018, with the selection conventions for Rathfarnham-Templeogue and Killaloe also taking place that same day. The selection conventions for the electoral areas in Co. Offaly also took place around this time, as did the convention for the Ballymun-Finglas electoral area, as well as Ennis and Kilrush. A number of selections also took place for electoral areas in Co. Wexford at the end of December 2018, including the Gorey, Enniscorthy, Kilmuckridge and New Ross electoral areas, as reported by the Wexford Today website (21st December 2018/28th December 2018).

As reported on the Shannonside radio website (9th January 2019), the selection convention for the three electoral areas in Roscommon County take place on 11th January 2019; with just one candidate contesting each of these, these will be uncontested. The selection convention for the Kanturk electoral area took place on that same weekend.

As reported on the WicklowNews website (24th January 2019), the selection convention for Greystones took place in late January 2019. The Firhouse-Bohernabreena selection convention also took place in late January 2019. Selection conventions for the Blackrock, Stillorgan, Killiney-Shankill and Dundrum electoral areas took place on 23rd January 2019. Selection conventions for most of the electoral areas in Mayo County took place on 25th January 2019. Muireann Dalton was selected as the candidate for the Wicklow (Town) electoral area also on 25th January 2019. The selection conventions for the electoral areas in Leitrim County also took place during that same weekend. As reported on the Northern Sound website (28th January 2019), the final selection conventions for Cavan County took place in late January.

The selection convention for Ballymote-Tubbercurry took place on 27th January 2019 – this was also contested by Francis Gorman.

Shane Neville was selected to contest the Midleton electoral area on 28th January 2019, while Cllr. Mary McDonald was selected to contest the Arklow electoral area on that same day, as was Cllr. Daire Ní Laoi for the Howth-Malahide electoral area. However, in March 2019, Cllr. Mary McDonald announced that she was leaving Sinn Féin and would instead contest the elections as an independent candidate, as reported by the Wicklow News website (10th March 2019).

As reported on the Northern Sound website (5th February 2019), the convention for the Monaghan (Town) electoral area took place on 4th February 2019. The selection convention for Ballybay-Clones took place on 2nd February 2019, as also reported on the Northern Sound website (2nd February 2019).

The selection convention for Graiguecullen-Portarlington took place on 6th February 2019, while the convention for Skibbereen-West Cork took place on 8th February 2019.

The selection convention for Athenry-Oranmore will take place on February 15th 2019, as reported by the Galway Advertiser (14th February 2019). The Donegal (Town) convention took place on 14th February 2019, as reported on the Ocean FM website (15th February 2019).

The selection conventions for the two electoral areas on the Inishowen peninsula (Carndonagh and Buncrana) took place on 17th February 2019. The Letterkenny and Glenties conventions are scheduled to take place on 22nd February. The two incumbents are likely to be the two candidates nominated to contest the Letterkenny constituency, while the two incumbents in the Glenties electoral area – Marie-Therese Gallagher and John Sheamais Ó Fearraigh – will be contesting that convention, with three candidates to be selected there, as reported on the Donegal Daily (4th February 2019) website.

As reported in the Westmeath Examiner (23rd February 2019), Hazel Behan was selected to contest the Kinnegad electoral area.

On 28th February 2019 Marian Buckley was added to the Ongar candidate list, while Ryan Fitzgerald was added to the candidate list for Castleknock. The Tuam selection convention took place on the previous day (27th February 2019).

The selection of Cllr. Chris MacManus as the candidate for the Sligo-Strandhill electoral area was confirmed on 19th March 2019, as reported on the Ocean FM website (19th March 2019).