More female candidates is the call for the next election
While we could have a first lady Taoiseach soon it has to be an aspiration that when the next General Election comes around more women will go before the voters in Co. Louth.
After Imelda Munster broke the mould in 2016 to become the constituency’s first female TD it didn’t lead to a rush of lady candidates this time. Rather, at three the number was down by one.
Elsewhere, of course, the ‘Wee County’ witnessed all sorts of change in GE 2020.
Three TDs based in the south, none at all from Fianna Fáil and a first Independent in 87 years.
The addition of coastal Meath to the old Louth constituency has had a huge bearing on the geographical distrubition of our representatives in Leinster House.
It led to a five-seater for the first time in 2016 when Drogheda-based Ged Nash was fended off by Dundalk’s Peter Fitzpatrick for the last seat, less than five hundred votes dividing them, with Fergus O’Dowd just 193 ahead of Fitzpatrick.
Anyway, Nash is back having got a decisive boost from the transfers of Mark Dearey, who performed exceptionally well. Nash picked up 3,021 from the Green Party candidate, benefitting from the pact which existed between Labour and the Greens for the Local Elections.
That was an example of an easy flow of transfers between north and south of the county, something that could not always be guaranteed in the past.
Dundalk’s Audrey Fergus of Solidarity-People Before Profit did best out of the transfer of Munster’s surplus, gaining 1,197.
Declan Breathnach fared better than expected from Fianna Fáil colleague James Byrne. He was put back in the race with 2,225, though ultimately fell short.
Breathnach felt a backlash which resulted in a total of 16 outgoing TDs from the party failing to make it back to Dáil Éireann.
No FF TD was elected in Louth in 2011 when Breathnach and James Carroll stood. Séamus Kirk was returned automatically as Ceann Comhairle when Fianna Fáíl was nearly wiped out, winning just 20 seats having gone into the contest on 71 as the governing party.
That election saw Peter Fitzpatrick burst onto the scene for Fine Gael. He retained his seat five years later but this time got the job done on an Independent ticket.
His first preference vote of 6,085 compared favourably with 6,408 in 2016. That gave him a good foundation as thereafter he was always regarded as transfer-friendly. And so it proved. He received 1,791 votes from Dearey.
Fitzpatrick became the first Independent TD for Louth since James Coburn in 1933.
First elected in 2002 Fergus O’Dowd has now successfully contested five General Elections, though it once again went down to the last.
He outperformed Breathnach 1,123 to 854 on Dearey transfers.
Of course, Sinn Féin’s performance was the main talking point, its 42% share of the vote bettered only in Donegal (45.1%), Dublin North-West (44.4%) and Dublin Mid-West (42.8%).
Ruairí Ó Murchú and Imelda Munster could afford to leave the Carnbeg Hotel count centre as soon as they liked after the first count was declared, and begin wondering whether they would be part of the next government.
If that is to be the case, the chances are Munster will be in the conversation for an important job.
And something for the other parties to mull over before the country next goes to the polls. The party with the most female TDs? Sinn Féin (13).