All posts by djmoore

The New Constituencies : Waterford

HISTORY

Waterford was created as a four-seater in 1923, and has remained a four-seater ever since bar a sixteen year period between 1961 and 1977.

William Redmond, son of Nationalist Leader John Redmond, represented the constituency from 1923 until his sudden death in 1932, first as an Independent, then as the leader of the short-lived National League and finally a Cumann na nGaedhal TD. His young widow served as a Fine Gael TD for a further twenty years.

The Farmers’ Party and Labour both took seats here in 1923, but lost them in June 1927. It was to be over twenty years until Labour again won a seat. The National Centre Party’s Nicholas Wall won a seat here in 1933 and won re-election as a Fine Gael TD in 1938. Denis Heskin of Clann Na Talmhan won seats in 1943 and 1948.

Labour’s fortunes were restored by the victory of Tom Kyne in 1948. He held the seat until 1969, and then again from 1973 until 1977. Indeed, 1969 was the only occasion Fianna Fáil took a majority of the seats.

One of the notable factors of the 1977 election was the strong performance of Patrick Gallagher of Sinn Féin the Workers Party taking four and a half thousand votes. He eventually won a seat for party in February 1982 only to lose it in November running for the renamed Workers’ Party.

(The Worker’s Party remained a significant force in Waterford City politics after the split with Democratic Left in 1992 – Martin O’Regan was runner-up in 1997, and they retained council seats well into the 20th century. Independent TD John Halligan had also previously ran for the Worker’s Party).

More recently, Brian O’Shea regained a seat for Labour from 1989 to 2011, Martin Cullen won seats for the Progressive Democrats in 1987 and 1992, before switching to Fianna Fáil.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Waterford

The New Constituencies : Cork North-Central

HISTORY

Cork North-Central is a direct descendant of the Cork Borough constituency which existed from 1921 until 1969.

In 1923, the Cork Progressive Association – a body consisting of Business and Commercial interests – managed to take two seats of the five on offer with less than a quota. What was even more remarkable is their second candidate only took 766 votes on the first count. They were greatly aided by a very strong terminal transfers from Cumann Na nGaedhal (85.1% versus 7.5% for Labour, 3.0% for the Farmers Party, 0.4% for Republicans) and the Farmers’ Party (80.0% versus 10.3% for Republicans, 8.5% for Labour). Similarly, in 1933, William FitzGerald of Fine Gael started last on the first count but was elected to the fourth of the five seats.

The constituency had a history of strong poll-toppers : JJ Walsh (Cumann Na nGaedhal) 2.4 quotas in 1923, W.T Cosgrave (CNG) 2.3 quotas in September 1927 and 2.2 quotas in 1932, Stephen Barrett (Fine Gael) 2.1 quotas in 1954 and of course Jack Lynch (Fianna Fáil) 1.8 quotas in 1965. Fianna Fáil managed to win three out of five seats here in 1951, 1957 and 1965 which signifies it was something of a Bellwether constituency.

It’s worth mentioning Richard Anthony, a trade Unionist who won a seat for Labour in 1927 but was expelled four years later for supporting the Cumann na nGaedhal government’s crackdown on the IRA. He held his seat until 1938, regained it in 1943 and then rejoined Labour in 1948. Then in his seventies, he failed to gain re-election to the Dáil in 1948 and 1951, but remained a member of the Seanad until his retirement in 1957 at age 82. A conservative by nature, in 1939 he proposed a motion at Cork Corporation congratulating Franco on “concluding his war against communism and anarchy in Spain”.

The Constituency was succeeded by Cork City North-West, which returned two Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael TDs in both 1969 and 1973. Jack Lynch took well over 40% of the vote in both elections.

This in turn was succeeded by a five seat Cork City, where Fianna Fáil took three out of five seats and 57% of the vote in the 1977 landslide.

The Cork North-Central constituency first came into being in the 1981 election, being formed of the northern part of the Cork City constituency, as well as adjoining rural areas that had been in the Cork Mid Constituency. Collectively, Fianna Fáil took six out of ten seats in those constituencies in 1977, but could only muster 2 out of 5 in 1981.

The Progressive Democrats won a seat here with former Fianna Fáil candidate Mairin Quill in 1987 – she held it until 1997. She

Bernard Allen held a Fine Gael seat for thirty years and was somewhat unusual in the party in having a strong working-class base in Gurranebraher in the north-west of the city. Never finding an electoral rabbit hole I didn’t like, I’ve had a look at the votes in the five Gurranebraher wards from 2007 (Allen’s last electoral sortie) to the current day.

YEARFianna FáilFine GaelSinn FéinLabourLeftOthers/Ind.
200723%31%11%13%11%10%
20118%11%24%25%29%2%
201614%6%35%4%34%2%
202012%5%51%2%14%11%
Votes in Gurranebraher 2007-2020

The Vote patterns are quite striking – in 2007 Fine Gael (largely thanks to Allen) topped the poll in Gurranebraher. In his absence, their vote more than halved in 2011 despite a large national swing to the party. This is something I might have a further look into.

Fianna Fáil won three of the five seats with only 2.2 quotas in 2002, and they managed to retain them with an increased vote in 2007. By contrast, they only just retained one in 2011.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Cork North-Central

The New Constituencies : Meath West

HISTORY

For much of the last hundred years, Meath was a standalone constituency – 3 seats from 1923 to 1933 and 1951 to 1973, 4 seats in 1977, and then 5 seats from 1981 to 2002. From 1937 until 1948, Meath was part of the 5 seat Meath-Westmeath.

1932 saw Fianna Fáil take two of the three seats for the first time – Cumann na nGaedhal had taken two out of three in September 1927. Fianna Fáil took three of the five seats in all four of the election in Meath-Westmeath, and then two out of three in the newly reconstituted Meath in 1948 and 1951. In 1954 James Tully of Labour won a seat from Fianna Fáil – he lost it in 1957 but won it back in 1961 and 1981. He was of course responsible for the infamous Tullymander constituency revision which backfired for the coalition badly in 1977. John Bruton was first elected for Meath in 1969 with barely three thousand votes, but thereafter became a consummate vote getter topping the poll five times over 33 years.

The Meath constituency was split into the current format of Meath East and Meath West in 2007 with Fianna Fáil taking 4 seats to Fine Gael’s 2. It was all change in 2011, with Fine Gael taking 4 and Fianna Fáil none. In 2020, former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Toibin was elected for Aontu, but it was Fianna Fáil TD Shane Cassells who lost his seat rather than Sinn Féin.

Other Interesting candidates who have contested Meath (or Meath-Westmeath) include the 5th Duc De Stacpoole (a French aristocratic title) for the National Centre Party in 1933 – he was runner-up by just over a thousand votes, Cathal O’Shannon – father of the journalist of the same name – who ran for Labour in September 1927 and the larger-than-life character Peadar Cowan who was runner-up for Labour in all four Meath-Westmeath elections.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Meath West

The New Constituencies : Offaly

HISTORY

The stand-alone constituency of Offaly has only existed once before – in 2016, where the entire county plus the Barony of Lower Ormond in North Tipperary formed a three-seat constituency.

On that occasion, Carol Nolan (then of Sinn Féin) edged out Eddie Fitzpatrick of Fianna Fáil for the final seat by under two hundred votes.

In all other elections since 1923, Laois-Offaly has been a five-seat constituency.

In 1922 – the “treaty” election – the four seats were contested by four pro-treaty candidates and one Labour candidate, William Davin. Davin got over 46% of the vote (2.3 quotas), presumably due to the absence of an anti-treaty candidate. However, Labour did also win 32% of the vote and 2 seats in June 1927 in a much more competitive election. Davin held a Labour seat until his death in 1956. Since then Labour has only won a seat on two occasions – in 1965 with Henry Byrne, and in 1992 with Pat Gallagher.

Despite Fianna Fáil’s later dominance, they didn’t win three out of five seats until 1938. The election of Oliver J. Flanagan of the far-right Monetary Reform Party in 1943 ensured they didn’t do so again until 1957. Flanagan won two elections under the Monetary Reform banner, and two more as an Independent before joining Fine Gael – he topped the poll in every election until 1977.

From 1957 until 2011, Fianna Fáil took three seats in every election except 1973 when they were outpolled by Fine Gael. Even in 2011, Laois-Offaly was an outlier returning two Fianna Fáil TDs in an election where the party only returned twenty.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Offaly

The New Constituencies : Tipperary South

HISTORY

Tipperary South has existed – apart from a brief interlude between 2016 and the present – as a stand-alone constituency since 1948. In that election it was a four-seater, and Fianna Fáil were narrowly denied a third seat by Clann Na Poblachta’s Daniel Timoney who had polled less than two thousand votes on the first count.

The margin was even narrower in 1951 when Frank Loughman of F.F. was again denied, this time by Patrick Crowe of Fine Gael who pipped him by just 142 votes. Loughman finally got his revenge when Fianna Fáil finally took three of the four seats in 1957 with Loughman besting Crowe by 123 votes on the last count.

1961 saw the election of Sean Treacy of Labour, who was to hold the seat for 36 years. In his youth Treacy has been associated with the quasi-fascist Ailtiri na hAiseirighe movement, and he clearly retained that streak of Social Conservatism which finally resulted in him being expelled from Labour for voting against a party Family Planning Bill in 1985. He held his seat against erstwhile colleague Michael Ferris in 1987, although Ferris retook the seat for Labour in 1989 when Treacy became Ceann Comhairle for a second period.

For nearly fifty years from 1951, no other party won a seat in Tipperary South outside the Big Three until Seamus Healy of the Workers Unemployed Action Group won a seat in the bye-election occasioned by the sudden death of Michael Ferris. A year later a second bye-election was held due to the death of Fine Gael TD Theresa Aherne – the seat was held by the party although WUAG came second.

In 2007, Martin Mansergh pulled off a major surprise by taking a second seat for Fianna Fáil in the then three seater at the expense of Seamus Healy – Healy was to regain his seat in 2011.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Tipperary South

The New Constituencies : Carlow-Kilkenny

Carlow-Kilkenny has existed – apart from a brief interlude between 1937 and 1948 – as a stand-alone constituency since the foundation of the state. In common with other constituencies in the south-east, it had a strong Labour tradition and in the hands of the Pattison family returned a representative at most elections between the 1920s and the new millenium.

Generally Carlow-Kilkenny tended to return two Fianna Fáil, two Fine Gael and one Labour TD for much of its existence although that being said, Fianna Fáil were capable of taking three out of five when the wind was at their backs – in fact, they took advantage of the splintering of the anti-Fianna Fáil vote to take three out of four seats in 2002.

It wasn’t always the historic big three though – The Farmer’s Party, National Centre Party, National Labour Party, The Progressive Democrats, the Greens and most recently Sinn Féin have all taken seats as well. In addition Clann Na Talmhan also took a seat in the Kilkenny Constituency in 1943.

Continue reading The New Constituencies : Carlow-Kilkenny

The results in Ballymote-Tubbercurry

Ballymote-Tubbercurry – essentially the whole of South Sligo – is one of the most “geographic” Electoral Areas as it is effectively bisected by the Ox Mountains with only one minor road running between the North-West and the rest of the area.

Two seats were elected in the east – Liam Brennan (FF) and Gerry Mullaney (FG), one in the South – Paul Taylor (FF), one in Ballymote – Dara Mulvey (FG) and one in Tubbercurry – Barry Gallagher (FF).

West of the Ox Mountains, Joe Queenan (IND) dominated the Enniscrone area close to the Mayo border, while Michael Clarke (IND) did similar further North around Dromore.

Fianna Fáil made a gain in the Tubbercurry area, with Gallagher narrowly edging out previous incumbent Martin Connolly of Fine Gael.

in 2014, Fianna Fáil pulled off a remarkable victory taking 5 out of eight seats with less than three and a half quotas.

This area has always been a weak spot for Fine Gael and their three candidates took just over half a quota between them and were never in contention.

Continue reading The results in Ballymote-Tubbercurry

A Quick Analysis of the 2019 Local Election Results

In this post I’m going to have a quick look at some of the statistics arising from the 2019 election.

Firstly, I’m going to look at how parties performed in different LEA types. The types are :

  • City – all the four Dublin Councils, plus Galway City Council, and the three city council LEAs in both Waterford and Limerick.
  • Large Town. The Largest town in the Area has over 20,000 inhabitants.
  • Medium Town. The Largest town in the Area has between 10,000 and 20,000 inhabitants.
  • Small Town. The Largest town in the Area has between 10,000 and 5,000 inhabitants.
  • Rural. The Largest town in the Area has less than 5,000 inhabitants.

For the purposes of brevity, I’ve grouped the Centre-Left parties (Greens, Social Democrats and Labour) under a common heading, and the Far-Left parties (Solidarity, People Before Profit, Workers Party, Independent Left and Independents For Change) the same.

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VOTE BY AREA TYPE

Note how Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael between them took less than 40% of the vote in cities, but over 60% of the small-town and rural areas. By contrast, the centre-left parties took nearly 30% in cities, but less than 5% in small-town and rural areas.

Next up is a table on the performance of parties in City Areas (as defined above) segmented by the percentage of Professional and Managerial households per area.

The Definitions are as follows :

  • Very High – Over 35% of households have a Professional or Managerial Bread-Winner.
  • High – Between 25% and 35% of households have a Professional or Managerial Bread-Winner.
  • Average – Between 20% and 25% of households have a Professional or Managerial Bread-Winner.
  • Low – Between 15% and 20% of households have a Professional or Managerial Bread-Winner.
  • Very Low – Under 15% of households have a Professional or Managerial Bread-Winner.

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VOTE BY % OF PROFESSIONAL HOUSEHOLDS PER LEA (CITIES ONLY)

There is a very stark distinction here between the perfomances of Sinn Féin and Fine Gael – in fact they are nearly mirror-images of each other. Fine Gael outpolled Sinn Féin by more than 10 to 1 in the areas with the highest concentration of Professional and Managerial Households while Sinn Féin outpolled them by 3 to 1 in the areas with the lowest concentration.

Centre-Left parties also did better in areas with more Professional and Managerial households – mind you this was largely due to the performance of the Greens in middle-class Dublin.

Just for interest’s sake – the LEA with the highest proportion of Professional and Managerial Households (according to the 2022 census) was Blackrock at 43%. Ballymun-Finglas was the lowest at 10%.

I hope to have a few more reports later.

LOCAL ELECTIONS TALLY – Rolling Updates

Below you will find tables – and hopefully graphs – giving rolling updates of the progress of the Local Election Tallies on Saturday 8th June 2024.

Updates will be inputted by Volunteers in Count Centres around Ireland as Tally Totals per Local Electoral Areas are completed.

I would expect tallies to start coming in around ten o’clock.

Firstly is the amount of areas which we have tally information for…

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SWING

These are the numbers of areas per county we have information for…

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TALLIES COMPLETED BY COUNTY

Below is the Running Total…

You can sort the columns…

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RUNNING TOTALS

These are the swings calculated only areas where tallies have been inputted in 2024….

In other words, if we have ten areas filled, these figure from these areas will be compared with the same ten areas in 2019….

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SWING

Finally, the MINIMUM number of seats is the number of quotas rounded down. The LIKELY number of seats is the number of quotas rounded up or down….

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Predicted Seats

Once the tallies are finished, I hope to add some analysis….

Projected Dail Seats as of the 1st of May 2025

The following figures are based upon time-weighted averages of polling figures for the whole of Ireland and the four geographical regions used for polling – Dublin, Leinster, Munster and Connaught-Ulster.

These figures are then used to provide counts with projected transfer rates for each of the new constituencies that will be in place for the new constituencies.

PARTYVOTE+/-SEATS+/-
SINN FEIN27%+2%54+17
FINE GAEL19%-2%39+4
FIANNA FAIL17%-5%36-2
OTHERS*10%+1%12nc
LABOUR4%nc4-2
GREENS4%-3%1-11
INDEPENDENTS19%+7%28+9
PROJECTED VOTE AND SEATS

*OTHERS includes – Social Democrats, Solidarity and People Before Profit, and Aontu. I hope to update the database to treat them individually next time.

Looking at those numbers in terms of blocs, the Government parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens) would take 40% of the vote and 76 of the 174 seats – 12 short of a majority. The Opposition (Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Labour, Solidarity and People Before Profit, and Aontu) would take 41% of the vote and 70 of the 174 seats – 18 short of a majority.

I’d have to add a caveat that the Social Democrats seat total is probably underestimated given that they are polling strongly – on the other hand the only other constituency they polled decently in in 2020 (besides the six constituencies they won a seat in) was Galway West, and their seat in Cork South-West – not withstanding her elevation to their leadership – could potentially be vulnerable on paper at least.

Below I’ve drawn – using my rather basic Matplotlib Skills – the proportions of seats each party/block would take per region. The Government parties are shaded in Green, the opposition parties in Red, and Independents in Gray.

The first thing to notice is that in none of the regions do either the Government or Opposition Blocs take a majority of the seats in any region – the number of Independents in all regions prevents such. The government take 47% of the seats in Dublin, and the Opposition 45% in Leinster but that is the closest either come.

Sinn Féin are the biggest party in all regions apart from Dublin, where Fine Gael have the edge. Both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil are ahead of Fine Gael in Leinster.

PARTYGAINSLOSSES
SFDUBLIN :Dublin Fingal, Dublin South-Central / LEINSTER : Carlow-Kilkenny, Laois-Offaly, Louth, Wexford, Wicklow / MUNSTER : Cork North-Central, Cork South-Central, Cork South-West, Limerick County, Tipperary, Waterford / CONNAUGHT-ULSTER : Donegal, Galway East, Mayo, Sligo-Leitrim
FGDUBLIN : Dublin North-West, Dublin South-Central, Dun Laoghaire
MUNSTER : Cork South-West, Tipperary
LEINSTER : Meath West
FFDUBLIN : Dublin Fingal, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin Rathdown / LEINSTER : Meath WestDUBLIN : Dublin North-West /
LEINSTER : Kildare South / MUNSTER : Cork North-West, Cork South-West, Limerick County / CONNAUGHT-ULSTER : Cavan-Monaghan
GPDUBLIN : Dublin Central, Dublin Fingal, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Dublin West, Dun Laoghaire / LEINSTER : Carlow-Kilkenny, Wicklow / MUNSTER : Limerick City / Waterford
SDMUNSTER : Cork South-West
LABLEINSTER : Kildare North, Kildare SouthDUBLIN : Dublin Fingal / LEINSTER : Louth / MUNSTER : Cork East, Tipperary
LEFTDUBLIN : Dublin WestDUBLIN : Dublin Mid-West, Dublin South-Central / MUNSTER : Cork North-Central
AONMUNSTER : Cork North-West / CONNAUGHT-ULSTER : Cavan-Monaghan
INDSDUBLIN : Dublin Fingal, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-West / LEINSTER : Longford-Westmeath / Meath East / MUNSTER : Cork East, Cork North-Central, Limerick CityCONNAUGHT-ULSTER : Donegal / Sligo-Leitrim
Projected Gains/Losses

CAVEAT : The above seat changes and the calculations are based solely on regional swings – they’re not based on demographics, candidates etc.

The first thing to note is that Sinn Féin only make limited gains in Dublin – in 2020 despite gaining nearly two quotas in Dublin Bay North, Dublin Central, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West and Dublin Bay North, the party only had one candidate standing in each constituency. However, the recent patterns in poll averages has been that despite Sinn Féin gaining everywhere else in the country, they are losing ground in Dublin. In fact according to this Poll Average, at the moment they would only take an extra seat in one of the five constituencies mentioned above – Dublin South-Central. There would also take an extra seat in the Fingal area by taking seats in both the newly-formed Fingal East and Fingal West – Fingal West in particular looks likely to be a very interesting constituency with Sinn Féin the only racing certainty.

Altogether, they take fifteen extra seats across the rest of the country – including three gains in Cork and their share of the seats in Wexford and Wicklow jumping from two out of ten in 2020 to a suggested four out of eleven now. Their sole loss would be in Meath East where they just over a thousand votes ahead of Fianna Fáil on the final count.

By contrast, Fine Gael would make three gains in the capital but only cumulative gain elsewhere – their vote rises in Dublin, but retreats slightly beyond the M50. Similarly, Fianna Fáil would make two cumulative gains in Dublin – helped by additional seats awarded to Dublin Mid-West and Dublin Rathdown in the Constituency Revision – but would suffer the loss of four seats in Munster and Connaught-Ulster. The Connaught-Ulster seat is Cavan-Monaghan and that constituency is building up to be a fascinating contest in the next election.

In previous analyses, the Green Party generally held onto three or four seats in Dublin (while being wiped out beyond the M50) due to their vote holding up relatively well in the Capital. However a further slide in their vote there sees them only holding on in Dublin Bay South – and this analysis is based upon the 2020 General Election figures, not the 2021 bye-election. In Fingal, Joe O’Brien, despite being one of the few Green TDs to have a strong local base in the town of Skerries (35% in 2020, 51% in the 2019 bye-election), sees his vote cut in half by the partition of Fingal.

Almost quixotically, the predictor throws up two gains for Labour – both in Kildare. In Kildare South, a four seat contest would give Labour a good chance of leveraging their massive support in the south of the constituency around Athy to take a seat. The situation in Kildare North is more complex – the first four seats are straightforward, with Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats all between a quota and a quota and a half. If Labour can get close to half a quota on the – and a decent transfer off the Greens – they’d have a reasonable chance of being competitive for the last seat. Elsewhere, they are looking at almost certain losses in Dublin Fingal West and Cork East, and possibly Tipperary (North) and Louth. In the latter two constituencies, Alan Kelly’s fate will be largely determined by the vote in the town of Nenagh and the accompanying baronies of Owney and Arra and Upper Ormond, while in Louth Ged Nash is dependent on the vote in Drogheda. Louth’s remaining TDs are largely reliant on the electoral largesse of localised fiefdoms.

As regards the Smaller parties, Solidarity/People Before Profit and Independents For Change are facing possible losses in Dublin South-Central, Dublin Mid-West and Cork North-Central. On the plus side, the extra seat in Dublin West should see a gain there.

The calculator suggests a loss of Holly Cairns’ seat in Cork South-West on the cold hard figures, but whether that transpires in is another matter. It also suggests possible gains for Aontu in Cork North-West and Cavan-Monaghan (the contest there I’ve already alluded to). In Cork North-West, Aontu polled very respectably in defeat in 2020 and started ahead of both the Greens and Social Democrats – the removal of Ballincollig from the constituency will also aid them.

Lastly, the predictor predicts a slew of Independent gains across Dublin, Leinster and Munster. Whether they materialise – ie whether an independent candidate capable of taking them will be in situ in each constituency – is another question.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have a fuller report next time with more graphics.