Longford-Westmeath becomes a five-seater with the return of those parts of East Westmeath that were previously in Meath West.
The constituency first existed from 1921 until 1937, then 1948 until 1992. The constituency had a few “late starters” – Gerry L’Estrange first contested for Fine Gael in 1948 but didn’t win a seat until 1965, while Joe Sheridan (father of Irish Times Journalist Kathy Sheridan) contested unsuccessfully for Fine Gael in 1951, 1954 and 1957 before winning a seat as an Independent in 1961 and holding it for twenty years. Fianna Fáil took three out of five seats in 1948, 1951 and 1954 but lost a seat to Ruairi O’Bradaigh of Sinn Féin in 1957. They also took three out of four seats in 1987. Labour won a seat in both 1927 elections – they had to wait until 1992 for Willie Penrose in the three seat Westmeath to win their next one.
The constituency has existed in its current since 2007. In 2011 Robert Troy was one of only two new Fianna Fáil TDs elected to the Dáil, and in 2020 the party made a gain here against the wind. 2016 produced a very unusual result in that all four TDs were elected from Westmeath and none from Longford – Fine Gael TD James Bannon topped the poll in every single box in Longford in 2011, but still lost his seat in 2016. The absence of Willie Penrose from the ticket cost Labour their seat in 2020 and their vote collapsed.
THE BIGGEST PARTIES PER DED IN 2020
The new Longford-Westmeath consists of the whole of the counties of Longford and Westmeath with the inclusion of those rural parts of Westmeath that were previously part of Meath West.
The three large towns – Longford, Mullingar and Athlone – are roughly equidistant from one another and you can usually expect at least one TD to be elected from each of their catchment areas. Longford was the exception in 2016, and this time it was the turn of Athlone with Kevin Boxer Moran falling short on the last count.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael shared the spoils in Longford with Fine Gael dominating the north and Fianna Fáil the south of the county. This actually overturns the usual alignment of the county in historic tallies in the county where Fianna Fáil tended to be stronger in the North and Fine Gael in the South. In Westmeath, Kevin Boxer Moran dominated Athlone and surrounding rural areas – but despite winning a commendable 41% in the town it wasn’t enough to return him to the Dáil.
The table below shows Vote percentages in Athlone Town from 2011 until 2020.
VOTE SHARE IN ATHLONE TOWN 2011-2020
| Cand./Party | 2O11 | 2016 | 2020 |
| Moran | 31% | 56% | 41% |
| Fine Gael | 32% | 15% | 13% |
| Sinn Féin | 12% | 12% | 25% |
| Fianna Fáil | 13% | 8% | 10% |
| Labour | 9% | 2% | 1% |
| Others | 0% | 1% | 9% |
| Independents | 1% | 4% | 1% |
Further east, Fianna Fáil were ahead in much of rural Westmeath – save the part that was in Meath West where Sinn Féin topped the poll in all eleven boxes.
The table below shows the percentage vote taken in Urban and Rural areas. Urban areas are defined as towns of over 2,000 population.
VOTE BY SETTLEMENT TYPE
| AREA TYPE | PROP | FF | FG | SF | OTH | INDS |
| URBAN | 37% | 27.3% | 20.3% | 26.1% | 10.2% | 16.2% |
| RURAL | 63% | 30.7% | 28.5% | 19.9% | 10.9% | 10.0% |
Fine Gael did notably better in villages and rural areas (29%) than urban areas (20%) whereas Sinn Fein took 26% in urban areas versus 20% in rural areas. This is broadly in line with trends in other constituencies.
The following are the electoral statististics in each constituency. VOTES refers to the amount of votes tallied in each county. CANDS (1C) refers to the votes taken by the candidates based in each county on the first count. CANDS (10C) refers to the votes taken by the candidates based in each county on the tenth and final count.
STATISTICS BY COUNTY
| COUNTY | POPULATION | VOTES | CANDS (1C) | CANDS (10C) |
| Longford | 35.1% | 34.8% | 28.3% | 20.4% |
| Westmeath | 64.9% | 65.2% | 71.7% | 79.6% |
The votes tallied in Longford and Westmeath broadly corresponded with the population breakdown – with Westmeath having roughly three and a quarter quotas worth of votes cast and Longford having one and three quarters worth of votes cast.
However, on the first count Longford based candidates took only 1.4 quotas worth of votes. By the final count this was down to just over 1 quota. Indeed, in 2016, no Longford candidate even reached the final count.
The following map show the percentage vote taken by Westmeath candidates in Longford.
VOTE FOR WESTMEATH CANDIDATES IN LONGFORD
Overall, 29% of the vote in Longford was taken by Westmeath-based candidates. This was largely due to the Westmeath-based Sinn Féin candidate taking nearly three and a half thousand votes – however Kevin Boxer Moran also took over a thousand votes, mostly in South Longford.
The Westmeath candidates took over 40% in South Longford, rising to 53% in Ballymahon. They took at least 10% in every polling station in the county.
As a point of interest, Robert Troy took nearly two thousand votes in Longford in 2016, but only about three hundred votes in 2020.
The following map show the percentage vote taken by Longford candidates in Westmeath.
VOTE FOR LONGFORD CANDIDATES IN WESTMEATH
In contrast, Longford candidates only took 5% of the vote in the part of Westmeath in the constituency. This peaked at about 10% in the north-eastern villages of Coole and Streete.
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 |
| CLARKE | SF | LONG-WMH | 11,848 | 100% | 1.26 |
| TROY | FF | LONG-WMH | 9,331 | 100% | 0.99 |
| FLAHERTY | FF | LONG-WMH | 7,666 | 100% | 0.82 |
| MORAN | IND | LONG-WMH | 6,730 | 100% | 0.72 |
| BURKE | FG | LONG-WMH | 6,617 | 100% | 0.71 |
| CARRIGY | FG | LONG-WMH | 6,334 | 100% | 0.67 |
| HEAVIN | GP | LONG-WMH | 2,325 | 100% | 0.25 |
| MANGAN | LAB | LONG-WMH | 1,904 | 100% | 0.20 |
| GUIRKE | SF | MEATH W | 1,591 | 13% | 0.17 |
| McFADDEN | FG | LONG-WMH | 1,411 | 100% | 0.15 |
As can be seen there would be six candidates in contention for the five seats. Johnny Guirke is the only candidate from the part of Westmeath which was in Meath West to poll over one thousand votes – he took 36% of the vote in that area. However, an analysis of the areas in Longford-Westmeath bordering Meath West showed Robert Troy (FF), Peter Burke (FG) and Sorca Clarke (SF) all taking roughly a quarter of the vote which suggest they would possibly each take roughly a thousand votes in the new area.
The following table shows the party vote by county (or part of county).
VOTE BY COUNTY
| COUNTY | PROP | FF | FG | SF | OTH | INDS |
| Longford | 32% | 37.2% | 32.3% | 17.7% | 5.7% | 7.1% |
| Westmeath (L-W) | 60% | 26.4% | 21.9% | 22.8% | 12.6% | 16.3% |
| Westmeath (MW) | 7% | 21.1% | 25.4% | 36.1% | 17.4% | |
| TOTAL | 29.5% | 25.5% | 22.1% | 10.8% | 12.1% |
In 2020, Fianna Fáil were able to take two seats off just over one and a half quotas due to good vote management – the increase of a seat will make those two seats much more secure.
On the base tallies, 68% of the base vote (4.1 quotas) would be cast in Westmeath versus 32% (1.9 quotas) in Longford. Theoretically, this could allow a Longford candidate take the extra seat, but as seen above a significant number of Longford votes went to Westmeath candidates in 2020, and more votes leaked to Westmeath candidates throughout the count. It is much likely that that extra seat would go to a Westmeath candidate. 1
Kevin Boxer Moran has legitimate reason to feel that the fates conspired against him as he was on 10,003 votes on the last count, but was still behind Joe Flaherty (11,064 votes), Peter Burke (11,034 votes) and Robert Troy (10,793 votes). Troy polled a very respectable 9,331 votes on the first count but attracted relatively few transfers thereafter.
Despite the fact that he is unlikely to gain much from the extra boxes in east Westmeath, on the 2020 tallies Kevin Boxer Moran would be in a strong position to take the final seat.