Youth no obstacle to Sinn Féin’s winner Cunningham

He was ridiculed as the baby-faced candidate and dubbed the Confirmation Boy because of the photograph on his election posters.

But Sinn Féin’s Stephen Cunningham, a 21-year-old student of government at University College Cork, is now one of the youngest councillors ever to take a seat on Cork City Council.

He put in a storming performance to top the poll in the Cork North East ward.

He is one of three new Sinn Féin candidates to win seats in the city — fellow UCC government student Shane O’Shea picked up a seat in the South East ward, and Kenneth Collins took a seat in the North West.

Cunningham, a first-time election candidate from Silversprings Court in Tivoli, romped home with 971 votes and was elected on the first count, just ahead of the Worker’s Party councillor Ted Tynan.

He won Sinn Féin’s first seat in that ward in a decade.

Party sources credited his stunning performance, in part, to RTÉ’s Philip Boucher-Hayes, who, a few weeks ago, tweeted a photograph of Cunningham’s election poster and branded him the Confirmation Boy.

A senior party source said: “After that, everywhere we went, nearly every door we knocked on, people knew him.”

But Cunningham, who joined Sinn Féin three years ago, said his youth will not be a disadvantage.

“I will bring youth, enthusiasm, and a new perspective to politics.

“I’m bringing to the table just as much as any other candidate.

“And you had over 950 people coming out and saying mine was the voice they wanted to represent them.

“I joined the party three years ago when I saw social injustice and economic inequality affecting all generations, but young people in particular.

“I decided that instead of standing back and having an opinion on this and an opinion on that, I’d actually get out there and use my voice and any bit of capital I had to make a difference, not just for Cork North East, but Cork City in general.

“Hopefully I can encourage young people in particular to get involved in politics, to get educated on the issues, and let them know what they can do about it.

“They can make a difference but they have to stand up and shout about it.”

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