Analysis: The race for Carrick-on-Suir Local Electoral Area's five seats

Seven candidates are vying to secure the five council seats in the Carrick-on-Suir Local Electoral Area down from 11 runners five years ago. But the smaller field doesn’t make the race in this geographically large district any less interesting.

Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District’s five outgoing councillors Imelda Goldsboro (FF), Mark Fitzgerald (FG), Kevin O’Meara (Ind), David Dunne (SF) and Kieran Bourke (FF) are all seeking re-election.

Two first time candidates Labour’s Michael ‘Chicken’ Brennan and Martin Murphy of the Irish Freedom Party are aiming to cause a political upset in the electoral area that extends from Carrick-on-Suir to Ballinure near Thurles.

Carrick-on-Suir is the largest town in the LEA with a population of nearly 6,000 and is home to two of the outgoing councillors seeking re-election, Sinn Féin Cllr David Dunne and Fianna Fáil Cllr Kieran Bourke, who have both doggedly represented the interests of the town’s constituents over the past five years.

In 2019, Cllrs Dunne and Bourke were up against three rival Fine Gael, Labour and Independent candidates from Carrick-on-Suir but this time they are they town’s only candidates.

This on first glance appears to be all good news for the Carrick councillors. But the reality is more complex and the race is fraught with danger for one of them if there isn’t a high turnout of voters from the town and its immediate hinterland.

Both candidates have appealed to Carrick people to turn out in force to vote and warn that the town could be reduced to having one councillor if the people of Carrick-on-Suir and its neighbouring rural communities don’t vote in sufficient numbers for the local candidates.

David Dunne, a councillor since 2014, was the second candidate elected in Carrick LEA in 2019 with a first preference vote of 1,282.

He was Sinn Féin’s top electoral performer in the county in that election.

He was greatly helped in getting elected by the transfers of the three Carrick town candidates elminated before him because Carrick people voted for other Carrick candidates in their lower preferences rather than along party lines.

The same was the case for Cllr Bourke, who was the fifth and final councillor to be elected in 2019 on the eight count without reaching the quota.

Given Cllr Bourke’s nerve-wracking fight for the last seat in 2019, the Carrick candidates are not taking anything for granted and they point out that Carrick-on-Suir town is too big to have just one councillor fighting its corner on the county council.

Cllr Bourke believes he is more vulnerable as he has a running mate, Cllr Goldsboro and the constituency is divided between them geographically. Cllr Dunne, on the other hand, will get the Sinn Féin vote from throughout the constituency, he argues.

Sinn Féin ran two candidates in the district in 2019. The party tried to recruit a running mate for Cllr Dunne again this time round but couldn’t find a candidate.

Cllr Dunne said the people they approached to run were afraid to put themselves forward for election because of the online abuse politicians are getting on social media and also because of the “savage” workload of councillors.

The big question in the Carrick LEA race is to what extent the two first time candidates, Labour’s Michael ‘Chicken’ Brennan from Killenaule and Irish Freedom Party candidate Martin Murphy, who lives in Mullinahone, will impact on the votes of the outgoing councillors particularly the three rural representatives Imelda Goldsboro from Ballingarry, Mark Fitzgerald from Cloneen and Kevin O’Meara from Mullinahone.

Cllr Goldsboro is the only female candidate in the district. She topped the poll in Carrick LEA in May 2019 with a very strong first preference poll of 1,980 that ensured her election on the first count.

She went onto contest the 2020 General Election the following February as one of Fianna Fáil’s two Tipperary constituency candidates where she polled a respectable 4,082 first preferences.

She is heavily involved in a range of community organisations in her parish and is campaigning for re-election on this record of work and her work on behalf of constituents on a wide range of infrastructure and services issues.

So too are Cllr Mark Fitzgerald and Cllr Kevin O'Meara, both solid public representatives also steeped in their respective communities.

Thirty three-years-old Cllr Fitzgerald, meanwhile, is the youngest candidate in the race. He first became a councillor in January 2019 when he was co-opted to fill the FG seat vacated by the late Cllr John Fahey from near Killenaule.

He impressively followed up by retaining his seat in the election four months later with 1,229 first preference votes that resulted in him becoming the third Carrick MD councillor to be elected.

In 2019, he was one of three Fine Gael candidates running in Carrick LEA election with outgoing councillor Louise McLoughlin from Ballinure and Margaret Croke from Carrick-on-Suir his running mates both located at far ends of the constituency.

This time round, he is the only Fine Gael candidate. Like Sinn Féin, his party wanted to run a second candidate but couldn’t find one. He agrees with Cllr Dunne that the abuse and grief politicians are receiving from the public particularly on social media is turning people off running for office.

As Fine Gael’s only candidate, Cllr Fitgerald has the whole electoral area to represent in this election.

One school of thought is that there is a Fine Gael seat in the constituency and so he should retain his seat as he will pick up party votes throughout the LEA.

But this is tempered by the fact local elections are much more parochial than general elections. As shown by the Carrick candidates’ fortunes in 2019, voters are more likely to vote for the local candidates rather than on party political lines.

Like Cllr Fitzgerald, Cllr Kevin O’Meara is contesting his second council election. He entered local politics in September 2018 when he was co-opted onto the council to fill his late father Eddie’s council seat, which he held for nearly 20 years.
He then retained the seat in the 2019 election. He was the fourth councillor elected after polling 1,177 first preferences.

The O’Meara political brand name built up by his father and Mullinahone people’s desire to retain their local councillor clearly helped him in 2019 with voter turnout in his home parish increasing 10%.

He is hoping his record of representing the people of his home village and other communities in Carrick LEA over the last 5 years will be enough to secure him another five years on the council.

Michael Brennan poses the greatest threat to the outgoing councillors.
He lives near Fethard but is a native of Killenaule and is campaigning hard throughout the constituency promoting himself as a “fresh new voice” to represent the people of Carrick LEA.

He is patricularly striving to pick up votes in his hometown and communities in its hinterland.

His family is steeped in the Labour party. His late uncle Ned Brennan represented Killenaule as a Labour councillor for 33 years from 1967 to 1999 while his father was a Labour member and trade union activist.

Michael is south Tipperary’s only Labour candidate. There hasn’t been a Labour councillor in the Carrick LEA since Michael Cleere from Killenaule who lost his seat in 2014.

The candidacy of the other first time candidate Martin Murphy, who lives in Mullinahone, is another interesting aspect of this election contest.

He is the only candidate in the Tipperary local elections representing the Irish Freedom Party, which is a right-wing Eurosceptic party that is anti-immigration and describes as “its primary objective the re-establishment of the national independence and sovereignty of Ireland”.

He says the local issues he is campaigning on are national issues and stresses to voters: “If you are looking for someone to fill your pothole. I am not that candidate.”

Mr Murphy lives in Cllr O’Meara’s stronghold of Mullinahone and he is married to Cllr Fitzgerald’s aunt so those councillors are expected to be hit most if he gets a good vote.

He says “uncontrolled” immigration and the housing crisis are the big issues voters are raising with him on the doorstep.
The vote he gets on June 7 will show to what extent negative sentiment about immigration is a pressing issue among voters in Carrick LEA.