Tipperary: Sinn Féin breaks mould with five seats in Premier County

Sinn Féin pulled off the previously unthinkable electoral feat of winning a seat in each of the five electoral areas in Co Tipperary, increasing their council representation from one to five.

Only Séamus Morris in the Nenagh area held a seat on the old North Tipperary County Council for the party coming into these elections, with no-one from the party on South Tipperary County Council. But canny electoral strategy, combined with popular candidates, saw the party pull in five seats, the last of them coming in the last count in Clonmel when newcomer Catherine Carey got over the line.

Elsewhere, along with Morris, David Doran was successful in Templemore-Thurles; David Dunne won a seat in Carrick-on-Shannon; and Martin Browne won in Cashel-Tipperary.

Meanwhile, a dreadful day for Labour was only partially redeemed in Tipperary when Fiona Bonfield won a seat for the party in the Nenagh electoral area.

She is a newcomer to county council politics, while the party’s outgoing four councillors, Michael Cleere in Carrick, Seanie Lonergan in Cahir, Virginia O’Dowd in Nenagh and John Kennedy in Templemore-Thurles, all lost their seats.

Meanwhile, Independent TD Michael Lowry has predicted a general election “sooner rather than later” as a result of Labour’s collapse in the local elections at the weekend. Mr Lowry’s independent organisation ran six candidates across the Thurles-Templemore and Nenagh electoral areas for Tipperary County Council but after some close calls in the late counts lost one of its four seats, that of John “Rocky” McGrath. Among those set to secure a seat was the former Fine Gael minister’s son, sitting councillor Micheál Lowry.

Former Fianna Fáil minister Michael Smith was another who saw a son, Michael Jnr, enjoy electoral success with a huge first preference vote of 2,568 in Thurles-Templemore. Mr Smith Snr said it may be a springboard for his son to seek a Fianna Fáil nomination for the next general election.

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