Kildare South remains a four-seater with the areas in Laois and Offaly transferring to the two new county constituencies and also the villages of Caragh and Twomilehouse to Kildare North.

The constituency has existed since 1997, when Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour won a seat each – Fianna Fáil won a second seat in 2002 and 2007. They held one seat in 2011, and regained a second from Labour in 2016. The constituency became a four-seater in 2020, but with the Sean O’Fearghail being the incumbent Ceann Comhairle, it was contested as a three-seater with Independent Cathal Berry being the surprise winner of a seat.

THE BIGGEST PARTIES PER DED IN 2020

The new Kildare South is a significantly truncated comstituency with North Portarlington going into Offaly, South Portarlington and Ballybrittas going into Laois and the villages of Caragh and Twomilehouse going into Kildare North.

Two of the main towns – Newbridge and Kildare – are based  in the north of the constituency along the M7 corridor, with the other sizeable town Athy in the south of the constituency. Smaller towns include Monasterevin, Rathangan and Kilcullen.

In the last 20 years or so the map of Kildare South generally split three ways – Fianna Fáil dominating the north and west, Labour well ahead in the town of Athy and its environs and Fine Gael topping the poll in the good farming lands in the south-east along the Wicklow Border. That pattern was broken somewhat this time with the emergence of Sinn Féin as poll-toppers in the Bog of Allen area in the north of the constituency.

The below map shows Cathal Berry’s vote in 2020 and how it is affected by the boundary changes. The white lines trace the border of the changes.

CATHAL BERRY VOTE PER DED IN 2020

Berry’s vote was very unusual in that it had not one but two centres of support. The main one was The Curragh (53%) in Kildare  and the army vote in Kildare and Newbridge (both 11%), but it was supplemented by a strong vote in Portarlington (42%). He also took over 500 votes (67%) in the postal vote.

The following table lists those candidates who took over 1,000 votes in this area according to the tallies. %TV (Total Vote) refers to the percentage of each candidate’s 2020 vote that lies within the new constituency, while %Q (Quota) refers to what proportion of a new quota each candidate would achieve on their tally vote.

RELEVANT CANDIDATES

SURNAME	PARTY	CONST.	TALLY	%TV	%Q
RYAN	SF	K STH	8,308	85%	0.83
HEYDON	FG	K STH	6,968	88%	0.70
WALL	LAB	K STH	5,634	97%	0.63
O’LOUGHLIN	FF	K STH	5,150	88%	0.51
BERRY	IND	K STH	3,782	67%	0.38
McL-HEALY	IND	K STH	3,368	95%	0.34
DOYLE	FF	K STH	3,178	91%	0.32
MAHER	GP	K STH	1,351	85%	0.13
HAYDEN	SD	K STH	1,181	89%	0.12

Independent TD Cathal Berry suffers the most from the redraw, with the exclusion of Portarlington and Ballybrittas leading to his vote being cut by a third – given that he only won the final seat by 515 votes in 2020, his seat has to be in danger even if Ceann Comhairle Sean O’Fearghail doesn’t run again.

Martin Heydon loses over 500 votes mainly due to the exclusion of Caragh and Twomilehouse, but that in itself is unlikely to  greatly affect his chances of taking a seat.

The table below shows party support by the settlement type – Urban refers to towns of over two thousand people while Rural refers to villages with less that population and rural areas.

PARTY VOTE VS AREA TYPE

AREA	PROP	SF	FF	FG	LAB	OTH	IND
Urban	54%	56%	53%	40%	57%	5%	64%
Rural	46%	44%	47%	60%	43%	10%	36%

Roughly 54% of voters cast their ballot in Urban boxes. Indeed there was little difference between  parties with most taking 50 to 60% of their vote in Urban areas – the two exceptions being the Independents (who took nearly two-thirds of votes in Urban areas) and Fine Gael (who took a sizeable majority of their vote in Rural areas).

If the Ceann Comhairle were to contest the next election, the final seat would likely be closely contested by Fianna Fáil and Labour; if all four seats were contested, Fianna Fáil would likely be guaranteed a seat and the battle for the last would be between Labour and Cathal Berry. In both cases, the fact that Labour’s vote is very heavily centered in Athy means that they mightn’t attract as many transfers as Newbridge-based candidates such as Berry.