Sinn Féin come close to surprise seat as Fine Gael win out

As was the case in 2020, when Sinn Féin's Brian Stanley stunned political observers in the five-seater Laois Offaly constituency by topping the poll with over 16,000 first preference votes and a 23.9% vote share for the party, the Sinn Féin vote was once again the biggest talking point at the 2024 election count in Birr where their first-time candidate lost out on gaining a Dáil seat by the slimmest of margins.

Tullamore-based Aoife Masterson, who only took her seat on Offaly County Council for the first time after the June local elections, narrowly averted an unexpected defeat for Fine Gael's Cllr John Clendennen by being just 117 votes shy of capturing the third and final seat in the new stand-alone Offaly constituency in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Sinn Féin candidate emerged early on as one of the four clear contenders to take a seat, alongside Cllr Clendennen, Fianna Fail's Cllr Tony McCormack and outgoing Independent TD, Carol Nolan. This was against a backdrop of a 5.5% dip in the first-preference vote share for Sinn Féin nationally.

As had been predicted, Carol Nolan, who was the only incumbent candidate in the race, saw her first-preference vote increase substantially from 5,436 in 2020 in the wider Laois/Offaly constituency, to 9,594 this time around and was elected on the first count, in what was a spectacular performance for an Independent candidate with no party machine behind her.

In an ironic twist of fate, it was the votes that were cast for former Fianna Fáil candidate, Eddie Fitzpatrick, that ultimately helped to elect Tony McCormack to the 34th Dail. Fitzpatrick left the party when first-time Edenderry area councillor, Claire Murray, was added to the election ticket, but her transfers failed to separate her running mate from either John Clendennen or Aoife Masterson, all of whom were running neck and neck after the 5th count. While McCormack did receive the bulk of Murray's transfers, her votes also transferred to Nolan, Masterson and Fitzpatrick in sizeable numbers.

Fitzpatrick's elimination resulted in Tony McCormack pulling away from the pack when he secured 1,100 transfers, which saw him edge closer to the 9,347 quota, though neither he nor John Clendennen had managed to reach the quota by the time they were elected on the 7th and final count.

While it was a good day nationally for Fianna Fáil, the party will be somewhat disapppointed with its vote share locally in what has traditionally been perceived to be a Fianna Fáil stronghold. In the combined constituency of Laois/Offaly in 2020, the party secured 31.9% of first-preference votes, but the figure for the stand alone Offaly constituency now stands at 23.8%.

It was a very bruising day for the Greens locally, with Senator and Super Junior Minister Pippa Hackett being eliminated on the second count with just 934 votes, having polled at just over 2%. That figure was down from 5% across Laois/Offaly in 2020, when the Geashill-based farmer secured 3,494 first preference votes.

With two of the three new TD's for Offaly – John Clendennen and Carol Nolan – based in the south of the county, that leaves north Offaly once again without national political representation despite having four candidates in the field..

Apart from Pippa Hackett, who sat at Cabinet during the last Dail term but never held a Dail seat, the last TD to represent north Offaly in Dail Éireann was the late Ger Connolly, who held a seat for Fianna Fail from 1969 to the 1997 general election, when he retired from politics.

Cllr Eddie Fitzpatrick came agonisingly close to taking a Dail seat for Fianna Fail alongside Barry Cowen in 2016, but he was a long way off being in contention this time, having polled less than 3,000 first preference votes, as did Cllrs Fergus McDonnell (Independent Ireland) and Fianna Fail's Claire Murray.

With the dust just about settling on the 2024 general election count for the new Offaly three-seat constituency, Fine Gael will be the political party breathing the biggest sigh of relief after their sole candidate in the race, John Clendennen, finally made it over the line by the narrowest of margins.

The party's high-stakes strategy of selecting a single candidate, and the members' decision to opt for Kinnitty-based businessman and President of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, Clendennen, over local election polltopper in the Tullamore Electoral Area Cllr Neil Feighery, paid off this time despite the fact that the Fine Gael first-preference vote share, at 17.6%, was almost exactly the same as it was in 2020.