Gains for SF and FG in Birr as Claffey loses out

When the dust settled on the marathon count to decide the fate of the 15 candidates contesting the six seats in the Birr electoral area, Sinn Féin had once again secured the seat they lost in 2019, while Fine Gael gained a second seat with Hugh Egan finally getting over the line after the disappointment of narrowly losing out to the Social Democrats last time round.

Fianna Fail fielded three candidates and retained their two council seats, although it would have been widely expected that Barbara Daly, a member of the Dooley family from Ferbane, would have taken the second party seat after Peter Ormond's poll-topping performance. Instead it went to relative newcomer, Birr-based Audrey Hennessy Kennedy, who was 50 votes behind Barbara Daly after the first count, but managed to stay in the race right down to the wire before she was elected on the final count without reaching the quota.

The Dooley family have been synonymous with local politics in the Ferbane area for a combined total of over 70 years, but that stronghold appears to have come unstuck in these local elections, where Barbara Daly's 879 first preference votes in a very crowded field of 15 candidates left her with an insurmountable mountain to climb.

Speaking to the Offaly Independent after her elimination on the 10th count, the clearly disappointed Fianna Fail candidate strongly refuted the narrative of their being “a Dooley dynasty” in the Birr Electoral Area and said “nobody has an automatic right to a council seat, it is the people who decide.” She admitted she knew as early as Saturday afternoon when the votes were being tallied that she was facing “an uphill battle” to secure a seat.

The third Fianna Fail candidate on the ticket, Peter Ormond, has seen a steady increase in his vote share since first being elected as an Independent 25 years ago before subsequently pinning his colours to the Fianna Fail mast.

Ormond's huge first preference vote of 1,943 saw him topping the poll in Birr and being elected on the first count alongside Independent Cllr John Leahy, who also performed exceptionally well by hoovering up 1,815 first preference votes – though his vote was down on the 2,277 votes he received in his own poll-topping performance of 2019

Six of the 15 candidates who stood in Birr were non-party candidates and, apart from Cllr Leahy, they all came in with less than 500 votes, with the exception of Banagher-based newcomer, Jonathan O'Meara, who polled 554 first preferences. His campaign was backed by Deputy Carol Nolan, and he managed to stay in the race until the 10th count.

Social Democrat councillor Clare Claffey was the only member of the outgoing council in Birr to lose a seat.

She secured 657 first preference votes on her first outing for the Social Democrats in 2019, but her vote dropped to 603 this time. After four days of anxious waiting, and over 54 hours of counting, she eventually lost out by 26 votes to Sinn Féin's Sean Maher after the Claffey camp called for a recount close to midnight on Monday night, when 27 votes separated the duo.

With the tide against Sinn Féin in 2019, Sean Maher polled just 539 first preference votes, so he will be particularly pleased to have been just 51 votes shy of doubling that figure this time out. His impressive first preference vote of 927 saw him become the fifth highest-placed candidate after the first count, just behind Hugh Egan, and ensured he would stay in the race until the final hurdle, before being elected on the 12th count along with Audrey Hennessy Kennedy. He managed to attract a steady stream of transfers throughout, particularly from the elimination of the five Non-Party candidates, receiving the highest number of transfers (99) from the elimination of Jonathan O'Meara.

It was a very good performance for Fine Gael in Birr where they picked up an extra seat which was left vacant following the retirement of veteran Independent Cllr John Carroll. The party fielded sitting Cllr, John Clendennen, who comfortably retained his seat and Hugh Egan, who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 election and narrowly lost out to Social Democrats newcomer, Clare Claffey.

Egan, who is a native of Doon, was the fourth highest placed candidate after the first count with 1,171 first preference votes, ahead of both Barbara Daly and Audrey Hennessy Kennedy from Fianna Fáil. He proved himself to be transfer friendly across the spectrum, receiving 101 transfers from the elimination of Pullough Community shop founder and community activist Martin Buckley and a whopping 419 votes from the elimination of Barbara Daly which brought him over the quota and saw him elected on the 11th count.

The Birr Electoral Area is now made up of two Fianna Fáil members, Peter Ormond and Audrey Hennessy Kennedy; two Fine Gael representative, John Clendennen and Hugh Egan; one Sinn Féin, Sean Maher and one Independent, John Leahy.