Healy confesses to have written his own obituary in battle for Tipperary South seat

Incredible drama, emotion, and tension filled the count centre in Thurles on Sunday afternoon as the battle between Clonmel’s Seamus Healy and Sinn Féin’s Martin Browne to stay in the race for the third seat in the Tipperary constituency unfolded.

A recheck of the bundles of both candidates is underway in the Tipperary South count. 

 Just 79 votes separate the two candidates with Healy out ahead of Browne for the first time.

A similar recheck process occurred in 2007 when Seamus Healy was losing his seat by 59 votes.

“I was losing my seat by 59 votes. I asked for a recount at the time but it was not granted and I was given a recheck. I won back a tiny amount of votes, two or three, but it made no difference and I lost my seat,” said Seamus Healy.

On this occasion, his adversary Martin Browne, after some deliberation with his family and campaign team, decided to request a recount and the Returning Officer James Seymour granted a recheck.

For most of the afternoon in the count centre it looked as if the Healy team would be requesting a recount but the tables turned very quickly in a drama filled afternoon.

Browne was 75 votes ahead of Healy after the distribution of Michael ‘Chicken’ Brennan’s transfers. 

Browne was expected to pull further away in the next count but  Healy started to mount a comeback.

Despite John O’Heney and Browne being from the west Tipperary part of the constituency Healy received more votes than Browne from John O’Heney and reduced the gap between them  to just 36 votes.

Both sides were now talking about seeking a recount and were separately saying that if there were less than 40 votes in it they would call for a recount.

The transfer of the 322 surplus of Deputy Mattie McGrath saw Healy finally overtake Browne in the  race and he now incredibly held a 79 vote lead.

It was an amazing turnaround for Healy who was now the firm favourite to go on and take on Imelda Goldsboro for the third seat.

Told by the media that they had already written his political obituary Seamus Healy believed he was gone as well.

“I had written my own obituary,” confessed Healy whose Lazarus-type resurrection sees him well in the hunt to win back his seat. 

All attention was now focussed on Sinn Fein and what they were going to do.

There was great confusion in the count centre with many believing that Browne had been eliminated but James Seymour, Returning Officer confirmed that the process was paused to allow Browne to confer and the candidate was given time to consider if he wanted to request a recount.

Browne, after lengthy consideration with those closest to him, decided to call for the recount.

“It was so close we had to go ahead and ask for the recount . Over 5,000 people voted for the party in Tipperary South and this was the right thing to do for them,” said an emotional Martin Browne.