Historic vote changes landscape of Wexford politics
WHILE few would have predicted it at the beginning, there was ‘one for everybody in the audience’ in a competitive Wexford constituency when the dust settled on general election 2020. Each of the parties finished with one seat along with one independent - Johnny Mythen for Sinn Féin, Brendan Howlin for Labour, Verona Murphy as an independent, James Browne for Fianna Fáil and Paul Kehoe for Fine Gael - on what was a historic couple of days for the political landscape of the county.
In terms of making history, the biggest story of the count was Sinn Féin’s Johnny Mythen romping to the top of the poll with an incredible 18,717 first preference votes - one of the highest tallies ever recorded in the constituency. In taking the seat, Sinn Féin’s first in the county for 99 years, he pulled off the ultimate Lazarus style comeback. Having fallen just short in 2016, losing out to Fine Gael’s Paul Kehoe by just 31 votes, he went onto lose his county council seat last year as the tide turned away from the party. Following a positive by-election campaign, there was renewed optimism among the Sinn Féin faithful, however, few could have anticipated the performance that followed. There’s an admirable ‘never saydie’ quality to the Enniscorthy man and he was rewarded for hanging in there on Sunday evening.
‘I don’t think anyone saw this coming,’ a shell-shocked Mythen said. ‘After the local elections we were feeling really deflated, but Sinn Féin has some great people and we always adapt.’
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Sinn Féin vote this time out was that it wasn’t in any way confined to Mythen’s hometown of Enniscorthy. He made significant in-roads in all of the main towns in the county and took votes from everyone. Not least of all, Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin who was regarded as an early favourite to top the poll.
Wexford town has always been a real hotbed of Labour support, and that would ring true again, however, on this occasion, Howlin was forced to share the spoils with an emerging adversary in Mythen. In fact Mythen nearly doubled the Labour man’s vote across the county with Howlin pulling in 9,223 first preferences. While there was little doubt from there that he would take a seat, Howlin was forced to wait until Count 8, early on day two, before being elected.
While disappointed with the picture for Labour nationally and dealing with whispers that his party leadership might be under threat, Howlin was delighted to take a seat and believes that Wexford will remain a labour stronghold. ‘You can see the tally sheets, there’s a huge anchor core of votes in Wexford town,’ he said. ‘There’s always been people who’ve shared that vote. It’s been Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, this time it’s Sinn Féin. But the Labour core is always there undented.’
Having now infamously been deselected by Fine Gael following a controversial by-election campaign, Verona Murphy came roaring into action and proved very transfer friendly as the votes were tallied. Despite the history, she took little joy in seeing her former party colleagues scrapping it out below her for the final seat while she made it across the line in seat three, making her only the second female TD in the history of the Wexford constituency after Avril Doyle, something she was acutely aware of.
‘I’m honoured to become Wexford’s second female TD,’ she said. ‘At the same time, I hope I’ve been elected on my ability rather than just because I’m a woman. I’m hopeful that I can follow on in Avril’s footsteps and continue on from the good work she did.’
In the build-up to polling day, Fianna Fáil’s James Browne had also been billed as a potential poll-topper. A lot was made of the ‘Browne machine’ in his hometown of Enniscorthy in particular, however, a combination of Mythen’s strong performance and the back-firing of Fianna Fáil’s four candidate strategy resulted in him only making it on the last count in the fourth seat. The party’s strategy garnered some major criticism, not least of all from Browne himself, who said it ‘always had the potential to backfire’, which it did.
In terms of making history, at the other end of the scale Lisa McDonald unfortunately saw the worst vote of any Fianna Fáil candidate in Wexford to date, while Michael Sheehan crashed out on Count 7 and, much to his disappointment, Malcolm Byrne became one of the shortest sitting TDs in the history of the state having only taken up the role following the by-election in November and ultimately losing out to Paul Kehoe on the final count.
A man well used to a dogfight, Kehoe faced a similar battle for the final seat in 2016 when he edged this election’s poll topper Johnny Mythen by the narrowest of margins to hold his seat. On this occasion, it was the transfers from his party colleague and fellow Junior Minister Michael D’Arcy who was eliminated on Count 10 that got him over the line and saw him claim the seat from Malcolm Byrne. Visibly relieved, Kehoe joked from the podium ‘I like to keep my supporters on their toes by leaving it ‘til the last minute!’
The fact that the party vote followed through rather than a geographic one has created the unusual situation of leaving North Wexford without representation for the first time in a number of years, while representation was restored to the south in the form of
Ramsgrange woman Verona Murphy.
In terms of the rest, Chairman of the Rosslare Municipal District Ger Carthy was the last one of the sitting county councillors to depart the race, having been eliminated on Count 8. He was relatively happy with his performance having gone from 3,024 first preference votes up to 6,004 at the time of his elimination. He leap-frogged County Council Chairman Michael Sheehan in the last count late on Sunday night to see another day. Never one to shy away, however, Cllr Sheehan arrived at the count centre yesterday to congratulate the winners and says it won’t be the last time we’ll see him run.
Having endured a couple of torrid campaigns in recent times, People Before Profit will have been relatively happy with the performance of Deirdre Wadding. Having taken 1,116 first preference votes, she took a huge 1,786 transfers from Mythen and was relatively transfer friendly throughout keeping her in the race until Count 6.
Dropping out one count before Wadding was the Green Party’s Paula Roseingrave who will also be relatively happy with her 2,028 first preference votes, given the fact that she was a last minute replacement for Karin Dubsky and only had a two week campaign to work with. Although he picked up quite a few transfers from Mythen, it was a baptism of fire for Independents 4 Change candidate Seanie O’Shea who took just 825 first preferences, while independent Bart Murphy struggled badly taking just 68.
Aontú candidate Jim Codd spoke of a rollercoaster few months having taken a seat for the party in the Rosslare District at the first time of asking in the locals last summer, being struck down by illness which landed him in hospital and then contesting the by-election in November before going back into campaign mode for this election. He was confident that Aontú were growing and moving in the right direction.
In terms of the big winners and losers of GE2020 in Wexford, quite obviously the Sinn Féin party were the ultimate victors. Having lost two of their four county councillors last summer, including Johnny Mythen himself, to comeback
IN TAKING THE SEAT, SINN FÉIN’S FIRST IN THE COUNTY FOR 99 YEARS, JOHNNY MYTHEN PULLED OFF THE ULTIMATE LAZARUS STYLE COMEBACK
to top the poll in such a definitive fashion was nothing short of historic. The emotion was evident among the party faithful who had stuck by their man and who felt that their day had finally come.
Verona Murphy can also be considered one of the winners. While pre-election, the smart money was on her to be battling it out for the final seat, the hard hours put in on the campaign trail over the past three weeks told as she easily outperformed both candidates from the party who had cut her loose.
The big losers on this occasion were Fianna Fáil. From the beginning, it was laid out in no uncertain terms that anything less than two seats for the party was a disaster. The four candidate strategy did raise quite a few eyebrows in the build-up, with the feeling that perhaps it was more evidence of indecisiveness from the party leadership, than confidence in their own ability.
The strains of this was evident on the face of a tired looking James Browne late on Sunday night as he went from potential poll topper to seat four over the course of a few hours.
The people of Gorey will also consider themselves to have lost out as a result of this election. They’ve gone from having two TDs working for them in the form of Michael D’Arcy and Malcolm Byrne, to no representation. Remarkably three of the five candidates hail from Enniscorthy and no doubt one or two of those will be seeking to put a consoling arm around the people of Gorey and vow to represent them going forward.
When all was said and done in St Joseph’s, talk immediately turned to when we’d be back in the count centre once again. With Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael taking such a strong stance on their unwillingness to go into government with Sinn Féin, the challenge of forming a government seemed like it was going to be a formidable one. One thing is certain though, the vast majority of the candidates will not want to be back out on the campaign trail again any time soon. Perhaps the only exception to this is Sinn Féin. With Mythen leaving over 6,000 votes spare after taking the first seat, they’ll feel that maybe there’s potential to bolster their numbers even further by running another candidate, with Wexford town councillor Tom Forde said to be figuring highly in the thoughts of the party leadership.
However, for now Sinn Féin will take the historic victory they have and the whole country will watch on as the numbers come in, party leaders negotiate terms and the next government takes (or doesn’t take) shape.