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.

This Poll Average was calculated by doing a time-rated average of the last five Irish Opinion Polls (with adjustments for each polling compant based on their historical deviation from the overall average of polls). Regional sub-data for Dublin and the provinces is also used to account for Regional Swings.

The main points of this Poll Average are :

• The Government Parties (Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Greens) would take 87 seats – 50 for Fine Gael, 36 for Fianna Fáil and 1 for the Greens.
• The Opposition Parties (Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats, Solidarity-People Before Profit, Aontu) would take 49 seats – 34 for Sinn Féin, 4 for Labour and 11 for the other 3 parties.

Bear in mind that there 14 extra seats in the new Dáil.

HISTORY

Waterford was created as a four-seater in 1923, and has remained a four-seater ever since bar a sixteen year period between 1961 and 1977.

William Redmond, son of Nationalist Leader John Redmond, represented the constituency from 1923 until his sudden death in 1932, first as an Independent, then as the leader of the short-lived National League and finally a Cumann na nGaedhal TD. His young widow served as a Fine Gael TD for a further twenty years.

The Farmers’ Party and Labour both took seats here in 1923, but lost them in June 1927. It was to be over twenty years until Labour again won a seat. The National Centre Party’s Nicholas Wall won a seat here in 1933 and won re-election as a Fine Gael TD in 1938. Denis Heskin of Clann Na Talmhan won seats in 1943 and 1948.

Labour’s fortunes were restored by the victory of Tom Kyne in 1948. He held the seat until 1969, and then again from 1973 until 1977. Indeed, 1969 was the only occasion Fianna Fáil took a majority of the seats.

One of the notable factors of the 1977 election was the strong performance of Patrick Gallagher of Sinn Féin the Workers Party taking four and a half thousand votes. He eventually won a seat for party in February 1982 only to lose it in November running for the renamed Workers’ Party.

(The Worker’s Party remained a significant force in Waterford City politics after the split with Democratic Left in 1992 – Martin O’Regan was runner-up in 1997, and they retained council seats well into the 20th century. Independent TD John Halligan had also previously ran for the Worker’s Party).

More recently, Brian O’Shea regained a seat for Labour from 1989 to 2011, Martin Cullen won seats for the Progressive Democrats in 1987 and 1992, before switching to Fianna Fáil.

HISTORY

Cork North-Central is a direct descendant of the Cork Borough constituency which existed from 1921 until 1969.

In 1923, the Cork Progressive Association – a body consisting of Business and Commercial interests – managed to take two seats of the five on offer with less than a quota. What was even more remarkable is their second candidate only took 766 votes on the first count. They were greatly aided by a very strong terminal transfers from Cumann Na nGaedhal (85.1% versus 7.5% for Labour, 3.0% for the Farmers Party, 0.4% for Republicans) and the Farmers’ Party (80.0% versus 10.3% for Republicans, 8.5% for Labour). Similarly, in 1933, William FitzGerald of Fine Gael started last on the first count but was elected to the fourth of the five seats.

The constituency had a history of strong poll-toppers : JJ Walsh (Cumann Na nGaedhal) 2.4 quotas in 1923, W.T Cosgrave (CNG) 2.3 quotas in September 1927 and 2.2 quotas in 1932, Stephen Barrett (Fine Gael) 2.1 quotas in 1954 and of course Jack Lynch (Fianna Fáil) 1.8 quotas in 1965. Fianna Fáil managed to win three out of five seats here in 1951, 1957 and 1965 which signifies it was something of a Bellwether constituency.

It’s worth mentioning Richard Anthony, a trade Unionist who won a seat for Labour in 1927 but was expelled four years later for supporting the Cumann na nGaedhal government’s crackdown on the IRA. He held his seat until 1938, regained it in 1943 and then rejoined Labour in 1948. Then in his seventies, he failed to gain re-election to the Dáil in 1948 and 1951, but remained a member of the Seanad until his retirement in 1957 at age 82. A conservative by nature, in 1939 he proposed a motion at Cork Corporation congratulating Franco on “concluding his war against communism and anarchy in Spain”.

The Constituency was succeeded by Cork City North-West, which returned two Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael TDs in both 1969 and 1973. Jack Lynch took well over 40% of the vote in both elections.

This in turn was succeeded by a five seat Cork City, where Fianna Fáil took three out of five seats and 57% of the vote in the 1977 landslide.

The Cork North-Central constituency first came into being in the 1981 election, being formed of the northern part of the Cork City constituency, as well as adjoining rural areas that had been in the Cork Mid Constituency. Collectively, Fianna Fáil took six out of ten seats in those constituencies in 1977, but could only muster 2 out of 5 in 1981.

The Progressive Democrats won a seat here with former Fianna Fáil candidate Mairin Quill in 1987 – she held it until 1997. She

Bernard Allen held a Fine Gael seat for thirty years and was somewhat unusual in the party in having a strong working-class base in Gurranebraher in the north-west of the city. Never finding an electoral rabbit hole I didn’t like, I’ve had a look at the votes in the five Gurranebraher wards from 2007 (Allen’s last electoral sortie) to the current day.

The Vote patterns are quite striking – in 2007 Fine Gael (largely thanks to Allen) topped the poll in Gurranebraher. In his absence, their vote more than halved in 2011 despite a large national swing to the party. This is something I might have a further look into.

Fianna Fáil won three of the five seats with only 2.2 quotas in 2002, and they managed to retain them with an increased vote in 2007. By contrast, they only just retained one in 2011.

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.

HISTORY

The stand-alone constituency of Offaly has only existed once before – in 2016, where the entire county plus the Barony of Lower Ormond in North Tipperary formed a three-seat constituency.

On that occasion, Carol Nolan (then of Sinn Féin) edged out Eddie Fitzpatrick of Fianna Fáil for the final seat by under two hundred votes.

In all other elections since 1923, Laois-Offaly has been a five-seat constituency.

In 1922 – the “treaty” election – the four seats were contested by four pro-treaty candidates and one Labour candidate, William Davin. Davin got over 46% of the vote (2.3 quotas), presumably due to the absence of an anti-treaty candidate. However, Labour did also win 32% of the vote and 2 seats in June 1927 in a much more competitive election. Davin held a Labour seat until his death in 1956. Since then Labour has only won a seat on two occasions – in 1965 with Henry Byrne, and in 1992 with Pat Gallagher.

Despite Fianna Fáil’s later dominance, they didn’t win three out of five seats until 1938. The election of Oliver J. Flanagan of the far-right Monetary Reform Party in 1943 ensured they didn’t do so again until 1957. Flanagan won two elections under the Monetary Reform banner, and two more as an Independent before joining Fine Gael – he topped the poll in every election until 1977.

From 1957 until 2011, Fianna Fáil took three seats in every election except 1973 when they were outpolled by Fine Gael. Even in 2011, Laois-Offaly was an outlier returning two Fianna Fáil TDs in an election where the party only returned twenty.

HISTORY

Tipperary South has existed – apart from a brief interlude between 2016 and the present – as a stand-alone constituency since 1948. In that election it was a four-seater, and Fianna Fáil were narrowly denied a third seat by Clann Na Poblachta’s Daniel Timoney who had polled less than two thousand votes on the first count.

The margin was even narrower in 1951 when Frank Loughman of F.F. was again denied, this time by Patrick Crowe of Fine Gael who pipped him by just 142 votes. Loughman finally got his revenge when Fianna Fáil finally took three of the four seats in 1957 with Loughman besting Crowe by 123 votes on the last count.

1961 saw the election of Sean Treacy of Labour, who was to hold the seat for 36 years. In his youth Treacy has been associated with the quasi-fascist Ailtiri na hAiseirighe movement, and he clearly retained that streak of Social Conservatism which finally resulted in him being expelled from Labour for voting against a party Family Planning Bill in 1985. He held his seat against erstwhile colleague Michael Ferris in 1987, although Ferris retook the seat for Labour in 1989 when Treacy became Ceann Comhairle for a second period.

For nearly fifty years from 1951, no other party won a seat in Tipperary South outside the Big Three until Seamus Healy of the Workers Unemployed Action Group won a seat in the bye-election occasioned by the sudden death of Michael Ferris. A year later a second bye-election was held due to the death of Fine Gael TD Theresa Aherne – the seat was held by the party although WUAG came second.

In 2007, Martin Mansergh pulled off a major surprise by taking a second seat for Fianna Fáil in the then three seater at the expense of Seamus Healy – Healy was to regain his seat in 2011.

Carlow-Kilkenny has existed – apart from a brief interlude between 1937 and 1948 – as a stand-alone constituency since the foundation of the state. In common with other constituencies in the south-east, it had a strong Labour tradition and in the hands of the Pattison family returned a representative at most elections between the 1920s and the new millenium.

Generally Carlow-Kilkenny tended to return two Fianna Fáil, two Fine Gael and one Labour TD for much of its existence although that being said, Fianna Fáil were capable of taking three out of five when the wind was at their backs – in fact, they took advantage of the splintering of the anti-Fianna Fáil vote to take three out of four seats in 2002.

It wasn’t always the historic big three though – The Farmer’s Party, National Centre Party, National Labour Party, The Progressive Democrats, the Greens and most recently Sinn Féin have all taken seats as well. In addition Clann Na Talmhan also took a seat in the Kilkenny Constituency in 1943.

Ballymote-Tubbercurry – essentially the whole of South Sligo – is one of the most “geographic” Electoral Areas as it is effectively bisected by the Ox Mountains with only one minor road running between the North-West and the rest of the area.

Two seats were elected in the east – Liam Brennan (FF) and Gerry Mullaney (FG), one in the South – Paul Taylor (FF), one in Ballymote – Dara Mulvey (FG) and one in Tubbercurry – Barry Gallagher (FF).

West of the Ox Mountains, Joe Queenan (IND) dominated the Enniscrone area close to the Mayo border, while Michael Clarke (IND) did similar further North around Dromore.

Fianna Fáil made a gain in the Tubbercurry area, with Gallagher narrowly edging out previous incumbent Martin Connolly of Fine Gael.

in 2014, Fianna Fáil pulled off a remarkable victory taking 5 out of eight seats with less than three and a half quotas.

This area has always been a weak spot for Fine Gael and their three candidates took just over half a quota between them and were never in contention.