HISTORY
For much of the last hundred years, Meath was a standalone constituency – 3 seats from 1923 to 1933 and 1951 to 1973, 4 seats in 1977, and then 5 seats from 1981 to 2002. From 1937 until 1948, Meath was part of the 5 seat Meath-Westmeath.
1932 saw Fianna Fáil take two of the three seats for the first time – Cumann na nGaedhal had taken two out of three in September 1927. Fianna Fáil took three of the five seats in all four of the election in Meath-Westmeath, and then two out of three in the newly reconstituted Meath in 1948 and 1951. In 1954 James Tully of Labour won a seat from Fianna Fáil – he lost it in 1957 but won it back in 1961 and 1981. He was of course responsible for the infamous Tullymander constituency revision which backfired for the coalition badly in 1977. John Bruton was first elected for Meath in 1969 with barely three thousand votes, but thereafter became a consummate vote getter topping the poll five times over 33 years.
The Meath constituency was split into the current format of Meath East and Meath West in 2007 with Fianna Fáil taking 4 seats to Fine Gael’s 2. It was all change in 2011, with Fine Gael taking 4 and Fianna Fáil none. In 2020, former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Toibin was elected for Aontu, but it was Fianna Fáil TD Shane Cassells who lost his seat rather than Sinn Féin.
Other Interesting candidates who have contested Meath (or Meath-Westmeath) include the 5th Duc De Stacpoole (a French aristocratic title) for the National Centre Party in 1933 – he was runner-up by just over a thousand votes, Cathal O’Shannon – father of the journalist of the same name – who ran for Labour in September 1927 and the larger-than-life character Peadar Cowan who was runner-up for Labour in all four Meath-Westmeath elections.
RECENT CONSTITUENCY RESULTS
For the table below, I’m using the historical tallies I have available for County Meath prior to 2007.
Otherwise, Laois candidates generally took three of the five seats, albeit by sometimes narrow margins – for instance John Maloney (Laois) beat his Fianna Fáil colleague John Foley (Offaly) for the final seat by only 311 votes in 2007.
| YEAR | SEATS | Fianna Fáil | Fine Gael | Sinn Féin | Labour | Aontu | Others | Inds. |
| 2004 | 1* | 36.2% | 32.6% 1 | 15.8% | 7.6% | 6.0%** | ||
| 2007 | 3 | 51.6% 2 | 29.1% 1 | 11.3% | 4.0% | 0.8%** | 1.3% | |
| 2011 | 3 | 18.1% | 45.9% 2 | 17.4% 1 | 13.5% | 2.3%** | 2.5% | |
| 2016 | 3 | 27.4% 1 | 32.5% 1 | 24.5% 1 | 3.0% | 7.0%** | 5.6% | |
| 2020 | 3 | 15.7% | 24.7% 1 | 29.8% 1 | 18.6% 1 | 11.3%** |
NOTES:
* 2004 was a by-election which was won by Shane McEntee of Fine Gael
** Votes for Others are as follows…. 2004 – Progressive Democrats 3.4% Greens 2.6%, 2007 – Greens 2.5% Fathers Rights 0.3%, 2011 – Greens 1.2% Christian Solidarity Party 0.6% Workers Party 0.5%, 2016- Greens 3.7% Direct Democracy Ireland 3.3%, 2020 – Social Democrats 6.0% Greens 4.8% Renua 0.5%.
THE 2020 ELECTION
The 2020 election saw a steep fall in votes in Fianna Fáil (-11.2%) and Fine Gael (-7.8%) with Fianna Fáil losing a seat. Fine Gael were over 8% ahead of Fianna Fáil on the first count, but two internal Fine Gael transfers took their toll and and on the final count Fine Gael’s margin over Fianna Fáil had been reduced to just over 3%.
Three Local Electoral Areas are in whole or in part within the boundaries of the new Meath West – Navan (Whole), Trim (Whole) and Kells (those parts to the South and West of the town of Kells.
The Party breakdowns in each area – and the changes with 2016 – are shown below.
| AREA | Sinn Féin | Aontu | Fine Gael | Fianna Fáil | Others |
| Kells (17%) | 40% +17% | 11% n/a | 25% -11% | 18% -14% | 6% -1% |
| Navan (45%) | 29% -3% | 27% n/a | 17% -8% | 16% -11% | 11% -4% |
| Trim (39%) | 25% +5% | 15% n/a | 33% -5% | 14% -10% | 14% -4% |
The first thing to note is the very strong Aontu showing in Peadar Toibin’s base of Navan Town. He seems to have taken votes across the board – mind you, there could well be a bit of churn i.e. some Fianna Fáil voters moving to Sinn Féin, but being outweighed by Sinn Féin voters moving to Aontu (and other similar permutations).
In the Kells area, both Sinn Féin and Aontu seem to have benefitted from voters deserting both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In fact, Sinn Féin nearly doubled their vote share in this Johnny Guirke’s home patch.
Fine Gael’s losses were less dramatic in Trim, perhaps due to the presence of local poll-topper Noel French on the ticket. Fianna Fáil’s losses were actually quite uniform across the constituency.
Below are the support maps for the three successful candidates – I’ve used the same colour scheme for each of them, which does underestimate the size of Johnny Guirke’s vote particularly in the Kells area (it reached 60% and over in and around Oldcastle).
Guirke achieved his best vote in the Oldcastle area, but also topped the poll in Navan despite Toibin’s strong performance. He also took over 40% in Ballivor.
Toibin’s vote has a classic decaying radial pattern with his vote generally decreasing the further you travel from his base in Navan. English on the other hand found that his strongest area was not in his base just outside Navan, but rather in the rural area of Garadice on the Kildare border near Kilcock.
DEMOGRAPHICS
I hope to add a section on Demographics later.
TRANSFERS
Below are details of the main transfers during the 2020 count.
| CNT | PTY | F.F. | F.G. | Greens | Soc. D. | Aontu | Others | NT | Total |
| 2 | S.F. | 184 (8%) | 234 (10%) | 289 (13%) | 555 (24%) | 927 (41%) | 81 (4%) | 2,275 | |
| 4 | G.P. | 194 (8%) | 466 (20%) | 1,096 (46%) | 459 (20%) | 165 (7%) | 2,380 | ||
| 5 | F.G. | 333 (9%) | 1,897 (54%) | 428 (12%) | 639 (19%) | 327 (7%) | 3,534 | ||
| 6 | S.D. | 580 (13%) | 1,059 (23%) | 1,694 (37%) | 1,236 (27%) | 4,569 |
The first thing that jumps out at you is how transfer-friendly Aontu (Peadar Toibin) were. They received nearly half of the Sinn Féin surplus, and also got very sizeable transfers from the Greens and the Social Democrats (despite the fact they would be – in theory – quite far removed from those parties on a Liberal-Conservative political spectrum) Adding it all together, Aontu/Toibin got 4,088 transfers during the count compared to just 1,482 for Fianna Fáil/Cassells. Clearly the Government (or associated with)/Opposition cleavage was far more important in voters’ minds compared to any ideological one. The local profile of Peadar Toibin has to be seen as a factor as well.
Elsewhere, nearly half the Green Party votes went to their centre-left counterparts, the Social Democrats as might be expected. It is worth noting that Fine Gael received more transfers on every count than Fianna Fáil – even from Sinn Féin. Perhaps Fianna Fáil were regarded by the electorate as neither Fish nor Fowl?
THE CONSTITUENCY REDRAW
The Constituency Commission recommended that the new Meath West consist of the areas in Meath in Meath West last time, while the areas in east Westmeath now return to Longford-Westmeath. Roughly one-ninth of the voters who voted in Meath-West in 2020 will be voting in Longford-Westmeath this time.
The image below shows the largest parties in what was the Meath West constituency in 2020. The white line in the east line outlines the boundary between the counties of Meath and Westmeath.
There is actually something of a east-west divide in the map above. Sinn Féin topped the poll in every polling station in Westmeath as well as the adjoining Oldcastle area. Elsewhere they topped the poll in Navan, Athboy, Ballivor and Cloughjordan. Aontu topped the poll in the Gaeltacht of Rathcarn.
Taking the tally figures at face value, the party totals for the new constituency would be as follows.
| AREA | Sinn Féin | Fine Gael | Aontu | Fianna Fáil | Social Democrats | Greens | Renua |
| Meath West 2020 | 30.5% | 24.7% | 17.6% | 16.2% | 5.7% | 4.7% | 0.5% |
| Westmeath | 36.2% | 25.7% | 9.2% | 21.2% | 3.1% | 1.8% | 0.9% |
| Meath West 2024 | 29.8% | 24.7% | 18.6% | 15.7% | 6.0% | 5.0% | 0.5% |
Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil both lose a small bit of ground on the first ground, while Aontu gains.
The net result of the change would see Aontu pull further ahead on the final count of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, while the gap between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would also widen slightly.