HISTORY
Cork South-West was first contested in 1961, but it covers much the same area as the earlier Cork South West – the south-west coastal portion of Cork encompassing the environs of Kinsale, Bandon, Bantry, Clonakilty and Skibbereen – which was first contested in 1923.
In June 1927, Fianna Fáil, Cumann na nGaedhal, Labour and the Farmers’ Party all took a seat, with the remaining seat going to Independent Jasper Wolfe, a Methodist Solicitor who had been British Crown Prosecutor for West Cork from 1916-1923 surviving several British assassination attempts in the process. He held the seat until his retirement in 1933.
Cork West was a poor area for Fianna Fáil – it wasn’t until 1938, the year of their greatest victory, that they finally secured two of the five seats. In 1937 Fine Gael, who had effectively absorbed the Farmers Party vote, took three of the five seats. By contrast Labour represented Cork West from 1923 until 1981with three different TDs all called Murphy – Timothy J Murphy from 1923 until his sudden death addressing a Public Meeting in 1949, his son William J Murphy (the youngest ever TD – he was just over 21 when elected) from 1949 until 1951, and then Michael P Murphy from 1951 until 1981.
In 1943, 65 year old Patrick O’Driscoll won a seat for Clann Na Talmhan. He held it in 1944 and the party nearly took a second outpolling Fine Gael by 27% to 20%. The party narrowly lost their seat in 1948 in the new three-seat constituency and never regained it, although former party candidate Florence Wycherly (father of the actor Irish actor Don Wycherly) won a seat as an Independent in 1957.
The departure of Labour’s Timothy J Murphy in 1981 ushered in an era of Fine Gael dominance with Jim O’Keeffe and P.J.Sheehan winning two out of three seats for Fine Gael in every election until 2002 – in that election O’Keeffe bested Sheehan by just 35 votes. The duo won two seats again for Fine Gael in 2007.
OVERVIEW
There was no change to the Cork South-West border in the constituency revision.
RECENT CONSTITUENCY RESULTS
For a constituency which for three decades had returned only Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the second decade of the 21st century was one of tumultuous change. In 2011, Cork South-West returned no Fianna Fáil TD for the first in the history of the constituency and its predecessor. It also returned the first Labour TD in thirty years. All three seats were won by Fine Gael and Labour candidates – in 2020 those parties took no seats.
The following table gives the result of every election in Cork North-West since 1997.
| YEAR | SEATS | Fianna Fáil | Fine Gael | Labour | Social Democrats | Sinn Féin | Others | Inds. |
| 1997 | 3 | 39.1% 1 | 44.2% 2 | 6.8% | 8.6%** | 1.6% | ||
| 2002 | 3 | 39.5% 2 | 32.4% 1 | 9.1% | 5.9% | 13.1% | ||
| 2007 | 3 | 42.5% 1 | 36.1% 2 | 9.6% | 6.7% | 5.1%** | 2.5% | |
| 2011 | 3 | 23.1% | 48.6% 2 | 14.3% 1 | 7.9% | 3.3%** | 2.9% | |
| 2016 | 4 | 19.6% 1 | 31.9% 1 | 7.0% | 8.5% | 3.3%** | 29.7% 1 | |
| 2020 | 4 | 23.3% 1 | 18.9% | 10.6% 1 | 10.8% | 5.8** | 30.6% 1 |
NOTES:
* The National Party in 1997 is a different organisation from the current National Party.
** Votes for Others includes…. 1997 – National Party 5.1% Green 3.5%, 2007 – Greens 5.1%, 2011 – Greens 1.7% New Vision 1.6%, 2016 – Greens 1.7%, Catholic Democrats, 2020 – Greens 3.7%, Aontu 1.1%, Solidarity-People Before Profit 1.0%
THE 2020 ELECTION
The big story of the 2020 election was Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats swooping down from almost nowhere to deny Fine Gael a single seat in what had formerly been a jewel in their electoral crown. I say “almost nowhere” as Cairns did win a council seat (by a single vote) in 2019, but you still would have been hard-pressed to buttonhole her for a seat in 2020.
It must have been particularly galling for Sinn Féin who have slowly cultivated a vote here on stony soil, only for the arriviste Social Democrats to come from behind them on the first count and get elected on their transfers.
As can be seen above, Independents (in the form of Michael Collins) dominated the West of the constituency, Fianna Fáil were ahead around Clonakilty and Fine Gael around Kinsale.
It’s worth having a look at a breakdown of the vote in the three Electoral Areas that make up Cork North-West.
| ELECTORAL AREA | Fianna Fáil | Fine Gael | Sinn Féin | Social Democrats | Others | Ind. | |
| Bandon-Kinsale | 23% | 24% | 10% | 7% | 7% | 27% | 37% |
| Clonakilty-Skibbereen | 31% | 16% | 12% | 11% | 6% | 24% | 37% |
| Bantry | 16% | 11% | 7% | 15% | 4% | 46% | 26% |
Despite the fact that Bandon-Kinsale had – marginally – the largest total of cast votes, no candidate was elected from the area. Both Margaret Murphy-O’Mahony (F.F.) and Tim Lombard (F.G.) polled decently but failed to get across the line. Christopher O’Sullivan is from Clonakilty-Skibbereen, while both Michael Collins and Holly Cairns (S.D.) are from Bantry in the West.
Below are the support maps of the three candidates elected.
Collins dominated the Bantry area in the west, although he also polled consistently well right across to the eastern side of the Bandon-Kinsale area.
Christopher O’Sullivan’s core vote stretched across the centre of the constituency around the town of Clonakilty, while Holly Cairns’ core vote was bookmarked by the towns of Bantry and Skibbereen in the south-west. Note however she did get a decent vote along the coast up as far as Kinsale as well.
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. | S.D. | S.F. | Others | Ind. | NT | Total |
| 2 | Ind. | 224 (36%) | 103 (16%) | 112 (18%) | 104 (17%) | 40 (7%) | 44 (7%) | 627 | |
| 4 | Greens | 177 (10%) | 291 (17%) | 986 (56%) | 154 (9%) | 75 (4%) | 92 (5%) | 1.765 | |
| 5 | Ind. | 767 (38%) | 548 (27%) | 286 (14%) | 223 (11%) | 201 (10%) | 2.025 | ||
| 6 | F.G. | 370 (13%) | 1,888 (69%) | 313 (11%) | 80 (3%) | 96 (4%) | 2,747 | ||
| 8 | S.F. | 989 (17%) | 393 (7%) | 3,023 (52%) |
On the first count, the two Fine Gael candidates were collectively 3,695 votes ahead of Holly Cairns.
The second count is Collins’ surplus – not a huge surplus, but it gives an indication of the preferences of his voters. Over a third transferred to Fianna Fáil, while Fine Gael, the Social Democrats and Sinn Féin all received about a sixth each. Only 7% went to Collins’ fellow Independent, Alan Coleman. Fine Gael’s advantage over Cairns narrows to 3,686 votes.
On the fourth count, nearly 60% of the Green candidate’s votes transferred to the Social Democrats while only 17% went to Fine Gael – Fine Gael’s advantage falls to 2,991 votes.
On the fifth count, the elimination of Independent Alan Coleman – based in Bandon-Kinsale alongside Tim Lombard of Fine Gael – saw geographic factors ensure that Fine Gael’s lead rose to 3,253 votes. Again Fianna Fáil took the largest share of the Independent transfers.
On the sixth count, Skibbereen-based Fine Gael candidate Karen Coakley was eliminated transferring 69% of her vote to her party colleague Tim Lombard and 11% to Holly Cairns – this cut the deficit to 1,964 votes.
Finally on the eighth count, Lombard started over two thousand votes ahead, but Sinn Féin transfers favoured the Social Democrats over Fine Gael by a ratio of 7 to 1, leading to Holly Cairns taking the last seat by 552 votes.
THE CONSTITUENCY REDRAW
The Constituency Commission recommended that there be no change in Cork South-West which thankfully makes my task that bit simpler.
Interestingly, in the local elections earlier this year the Social Democrats failed to retain the council seat Holly Cairns had won – by one vote! – in 2019 from Independent Finbarr Harrington. Indeed it was Harrington that took that seat in June. However – and quite impressively – they managed to get candidates elected in both Clonakilty-Skibbereen and in Bandon-Kinsale which would to seem augur well for Holly Cairns retaining the seat.