Ferris’s daughter elected Kerry mayor

UP to 100 Sinn Féin supporters, including MEP Mary Lou McDonald, crowded into the Kerry County Council chamber in Tralee yesterday for the election of a daughter of Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris as Kerry mayor.

Toireasa Ferris, a 25-year-old postgraduate student at Queen’s University, Belfast, won the mayoralty in a pact with Fianna Fáil and succeeds FF councillor Ned O’Sullivan.

She defeated Independent councillor Brendan Cronin, who had the support of Fine Gael, Labour and the South Kerry Independent Alliance, on a 14-12 vote. She immediately walked to the public gallery and warmly embraced her jubilant father, who was standing among supporters.