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.
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%.
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.
PARTY
VOTE
+/-
SEATS
+/-
SINN FEIN
27%
+2%
54
+17
FINE GAEL
19%
-2%
39
+4
FIANNA FAIL
17%
-5%
36
-2
OTHERS*
10%
+1%
12
nc
LABOUR
4%
nc
4
-2
GREENS
4%
-3%
1
-11
INDEPENDENTS
19%
+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.
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.
This post is going to have a look at my calculated poll as of the First of May – I’m currently finishing off my new constituency database, so I don’t have seat projections in this post.
Instead I plan to have a look at demographic trends in current polls. To this end, I plan to use poll data from the following pollsters : MRBI, Red C Research, Ireland Thinks, Behaviours & Attitudes and OpinionsIE.
The calculations are based on a time-weighted average of the 10 latest polls (or 5 in the case of the overall vote) in each case. Given that demographic breakdowns are available from some pollsters and not others, demographic figures are adjusted to the Overall vote for each party.
Firstly the current polling average as of May 1st.
The Braid Electoral Area lies largely to the east of Ballymena town touching upon the Glens of Antrim to the far north-east of the area where the only significant Catholic population in the area lies around the Village of Cargan. The Protestant Population is overwhelmingly Presbyterian.
In 1985, the new Braid Electoral Area replaced the previous Ballymena A which seems to have covered much of the same area. Independent James Woulahan was defending his seat and seemed set for victory having got just under 97% of a quota.
The U.U.P were on 2.12 quotas and the D.U.P. on 2.91 quotas.
This post will look at some of the quirky and unusual results that have been thrown up by our PR-STV system.
Galway South was a new constituency, created by the division of the four seat Galway East into two new three seaters, Galway North and Galway South. Of the four Galway East TDs, two – Patrick Beegan and Frank Fahy (the Ceann Comhairle) opted to run in the new Galway South. Both were Fianna Fáil. The other two TDs (John Donnellan of Clann Na Talmhan and Mark Killilea of Fianna Fáil opted to run in Galway North
The advent of Clann Na Talmhan in the 1943 General Election had decimated Fine Gael support – they went from taking 30% and a seat in 1938 to only 8% in 1943. In 1944 they didn’t even contest the constituency.
Below I’m going to look at the patterns in Sinn Féin’s polling patterns since the 2020 General Election.
I’m doing this by means of averages calculated by use of data from ten time-weighted polls per value. This allows for longer-term trends to be apparent at the expense of a slight lag in temporal accuracy. Data from MRBI, RED C Research, Ireland Thinks and Behaviours and Attitudes polls.
The first map below shows the changes that took place in Sinn Féin’s overall poll rating and its standings amongst middle-class and working-class voters from the start of 2019 until the Election in February.
Meath East becomes a four-seater with the return of the areas in North Meath which were previously in Cavan-Monaghan as well as the Bettystown-Laytown area which was previously in Louth.
Meath East was first contested in 2007, when it returned two Fianna Fáil TDs and one Fine Gael TD. In 2011, both Labour and Fine Gael made gains at the expense of Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil regained a seat from Labour in 2016, while Sinn Féin gained a seat from Fine Gael in 2020.
The constituency consists of the easternmost and northernmost parts of Meath. In the south-east lie the towns of Ratoath and Dunboyne, former villages which experienced recent rapid growth; Ashbourne nearby lies on the Dublin border and also experienced rapid growth. In the north-east the towns of Bettystown and Laytown lie along the Irish sea coast, while the ancient town of Kells is in the far west of the constituency.
Mayo becomes a five-seater with the return of the Ballinrobe hinterland from Galway West.
Between 1923 and 1969, the constituency was divided into two constituencues, Mayo North and Mayo South.
Mayo North was one of the five constituencies that returned a rump Sinn Féin candidate in June 1927. It also hosted Republican Tom Maguire (1921 until 1927) who in 1986 gave his blessing to Republican Sinn Fein in the aftermath of the Republican schism of that year; he died in 1993 at the age of 101.
Fianna Fáil held two out of three seats from 1937 until 1951 when Thomas O’Hara took a seat for Clann Na Talmhan on his third attempt. He held it in 1954 but lost in 1957 – he then won as a Fine Gael TD in 1965 and 1969 (for Mayo East). Joseph Leneghan ran unsuccessfully for Fine Gael in 1944 and 1951 before winning a seat in as an Independent in 1961 – he lost in 1965 but was elected again in 1969 this time for Fianna Fáil. In 1965 Fine Gael took two out of three seats for the first time; they took 49% just behind Fianna Fáil on 49.7%.
In Mayo South, Cumann na nGaedhal won three out of seats in 1923 – they lost one to Thomas O’Connell of Labour in June 1927 who topped the poll. In 1933 the first four candidates on the first count were Fianna Fáil, and the other four were Fine Gael. Between 1932 and 1943 the result was three seats for Fianna Fáil and two seats for Fine Gael – this pattern was broken in the latter year by the emergence of Clann Na Talmhan who won two seats. Fine Gael lost their seat in 1944, and failed to regain it until Henry Kenny (father of Enda) won it back for them.
In 1969 two new three seat constituencies of Mayo East and Mayo West were introduced. Fine Gael won two seats that year in Mayo East, and in 1973 won two seats in Mayo West – despite Fianna Fáil winning over half the vote. Otherwise each constituency returned two Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael TDs until their abolition after 1992.
Fine Gael were dominant in the new five seat constituency winning three seats in 1997 and 2007 and four seats in 2011.
