Category Archives: Kildare

Census 2022, Kildare

Preliminary Census Returns – What they may mean for constituency boundaries in Kildare

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The following workings are based on the preliminary results from the 2022 census.

I was originally going to work solely  on the basis of a 171 seat Dail – but based on Adrian Kavanagh’s post regarding what a Boundary Commission might be likely to do, I’m also going to include an analysis based on a 176 seat Dáil.

SCENARIO A – A 171 SEAT DAIL

Under Scenario A, County Kildare would be entitled to 8.24 seats – which is within the 5% deviation (7.6-8.4 seats) allowed from the National Average – provided of course both constituencies stay within that national average

Option 1 – Two Four Seaters

The easiest way to ensure that Kildare supports two four-seaters is to transfer seven District Electoral Divisions in the North-West of the constituency (with a population of 9,806 souls) into Kildare South.

This would be a predominantly rural area on the northern border of the Kildare portion of the Bog of Allen. The only town is Prosperous in the south-east of the area – it also contains the village of Johnstownbridge in the north-west.

Kildare North 2022

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Kildare

The Carlow-Kildare Constituency

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Another interesting historical constiuency was the 4 seat Carlow-Kildare which existed from 1935-1947. It consisted of the whole of Kildare and North Carlow, South-east Carlow going into Wexford, and North-East into Wicklow.

Carlow-Kildare 1935

In each of the 4 elections (1937, 1943, 1944 and 1948) Fianna Fail took 2 seats, and Fine Gael and Labour 1 each – though Thomas Hayden of Labour was only 525 votes off taking the last seat from Francis Humphreys of Fianna Fáil in 1943.

In 1937, three o…f the TDs were from Kildare with only Francis Humphreys being based in Carlow. However in 1938, Carlow-based Fine Gael based candidate James Hughes narrowly ousted the Athy-based sitting Fine Gael TD Sydney Minch, and held his seat easily in 1943 and 1944. He died suddenly in early 1948 while addressing a meeting in Borris, County Carlow. Therefore there were 2 TDs each from Carlow and Kildare in 1938, and the same pattern persisted in 1943 and 1944.

Kildare

KILDARE 1961 – THE FRANKENSTEIN CONSTITUENCY

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As part as my submission to the Constituency Commission, I went back and had a look at the various forms the Kildare Constituency has taken over the years.

Kildare 1961

Certainly the oddest was the 4 seat Kildare constituency created in 1961 which took in parts of South-West Meath and South-East Westmeath. It featured in two General Elections (1961 and 1965) and both times returned two Fianna Fail TDs (including the Meath-based Brendan Crinion both times), one Fine Gael TD and one Labour TD.

There was a by-election in 1964 following the death of Labour Leader William /Norton, which was won by Fianna Fail. His son Patrick Norton won a seat for Labour in 1965, but joined Fianna Fail in 1967, and lost his seat standing as a Fianna Fail candidate in 1969. He afterwards was a Fianna Fail senator.