Loss of town’s vote cost Brassil dearly

FIANNA Fáil’s John Brassil has said his own party ‘threw him under the bus’ when they put his near-neighbour Norma Foley on the ticket.

The Tralee, Fenit and Blennerville box tallies go a long way to proving his point and reveal just how much having a running mate from Tralee hurt the Ballyheigue native’s chances of holding his seat.

Back in 2016, Brassil came away from Tralee town with a massive 1,799 votes, with the county capital providing just over 22 per cent of his total first-preference vote.

This time out, despite a major canvassing effort in the town, Brassil could muster just 518 votes from Tralee.

By contrast, long-serving local councillor and three-time Tralee Mayor Norma Foley won 1,761 votes in her home town.

A tally just under Brassil’s 2016 Tralee vote suggests where most of his votes in the town went and the devastating impact Norma Foley’s campaign had on his doomed bid to keep his seat.

Though Norma Foley secured a huge vote in Tralee she, and Fianna Fáil, were utterly dominated by Sinn Féin.

Pa Daly out-polled Norma Foley by a margin of two to one, coming away with an enormous 3,474 votes, 1,111 more than Martin Ferris managed in 2016.

He also easily saw off the Tralee incursion from the Healy-Rae machine.

Though Tralee was kind to Michael HealyRae, serving him up 1,365 votes along with another 127 for Danny, the Kilgarvan-based brothers trailed behind Daly and Sinn Féin.

Fine Gael meanwhile fared moderately well with Brendan Girffin picking up 756 votes, and 284 going to Mike Kennelly.