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.

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.