One in, one out: Longford's TD shake up see's Flaherty unseated

After close to 32 hours of activity in the John Count McCormack Centre at the Technological University of the Shannon, Athlone returning officer Brid Concannon closed the book on the 2024 Longford Westmeath General Election contest.

There were still a couple of hundred people there to support the candidates deemed elected in the early hours of Monday morning.

The contest was a fait accompli since just before three o'clock on Saturday, when the tallies were in for the 2024 Longford Westmeath General Election, indicating that the race was pretty much run.

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The top six players in the 2024 contest for five seats were the exact same as 2020, the only differences were their positions.

With a constituency population of near enough to 142,500, and a ratio of two Westmeath people to every one Longford person any hopes the smaller county could angle for two seats were optimistic. Of the eligible voters 61,884 turned out to put a mark on voting papers.

The first count showed that Peter Burke (FG) had 10,864, Robert Troy's (FF) total was 8,116, Kevin Boxer Moran (Ind) secured 8,056, Micheál Carrigy (FG) sat at 7,090, Sorca Clarke (SF) hit 6,998, and Joe Flaherty (FF) was on 5,231 votes.

The quota of 10,315 meant that Burke was the first past the post, elected on the first count at 10:30pm on Saturday night. It would be a long race before the next TD was declared.

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The largest swing was the loss of almost 10% of her number one votes by Sorca Clarke, however her party running mate ensured those ballots returned to her on his elimination and she was deemed elected in count 14.

The next biggest change was Peter Burke. His time as a minister, and the resultant attention, played a part in him increasing his first preferences by almost 6%.

The third significant shift, and the one that had the most apparent influence on the outcome of the contest, was Joe Flaherty dropping 5.4% of his first preference votes.

Even back earlier in the day, once the tallies were in, it was mooted it would take a miracle for sitting TD Flaherty to claw back the 1,767 votes he needed to catch up on the lowest of the top five.

There is a certain irony to the Longford Westmeath numbers. Last time out the constituency bucked the trend, two Fianna Fáil candidates were elected in the four seater, while the party lost seats across the country.

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This time Longford Westmeath was again out of step as Fianna Fáil returned as the largest party in the country, but the constituency which had a seat added has one less FF elected representative. This was one of the best elections for Fianna Fáil since 1997.

Despite that Longford went into this contest with one TD and came out of it with one TD. There was never a moment where it looked as if it was possible this would not be the case.

The only way Flaherty could have closed the near 1,800 vote gap was by securing large transfers, but as Sunday progressed it was clear that this was not going to happen.

This election was the fourth successful Dáil contest for Robert Troy (elected along with Micheál Carrigy on count 15), while polltopper Burke is now a three time elected TD.

Micheál Carrigy is the first Fine Gael TD from north Longford since Seán Mac Eoin was an elected TD. Deputy Carrigy has the distinction of hailing from the same village as Mac Eoin.

Speaking to the Leader on Sunday evening as the picture of the outcome began to solidify, Fianna Fáil stalwart Donie Cassidy said: “We came in with two and we are going out with one.”

The hopes that Longford could capitalise on the introduction of an extra seat to repeat representational feats like when we had Albert Reynolds and Louis Belton, or Peter Kelly and James Bannon in the Dáil were dashed at a very early stage.

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The constituency is now made up of the entire counties of Longford and Westmeath for the first time since 1980.
It includes an additional 19 electoral divisions in the north east of Westmeath. This area around Castlepollard brought an additional 9,481 residents in the redrawn Longford Westmeath constituency, but the advantage was to the three sitting TDs in the environs.

After the 15th count two new Dáil members Kevin 'Boxer' Moran (elected count 14) and Micheál Carrigy will be setting up office in Leinster house.

Identifying where 5.4% of Joe Flaherty's first preference votes went will be Fianna Fáil's mission. A poor performance in the north of the county in the local elections, a weak turnout in the Longford MD and Micheál Carrigy taking significant numbers in boxes previously dominated by FF when the race was last run, were highlighted as key factors.

County Longford did not have exemplary turnout figures. Ballymahon MD came in at 56%, Granard MD at 55% and Longford MD was around 45%, giving a county wide total of 51.5% turnout. There were four booths in Longford Town with turnouts below 30%; two St Michael's NS boxes were at 27%, while a St Joseph's box had a 16% turnout.

“Joe was probably dependent largely on the town for a good swipe of his core vote,” Independent Gerry Warnock speculated,

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“The low turnout in the town definitely didn't help Joe, no more than it didn't help me.”
Conjecture before the election was that Warnock would take votes Flaherty expected in Longford town, however the transfers of the independent candidate's ballots did not bear this out. Of the 2,700 votes Boxer got 625, Micheál got 618 and Joe got 519.

“Westmeath candidates that were eliminated were transferring heavily to other Westmeath candidates,” Warnock said of the transfers, “There was very little there for Longford candidates. But Sinn Féin, first and foremost, ran an excellent campaign.

“They got their vote management spot on. I'd never seen that Westmeath connection with Barry Campion, where he got nearly 50% of his first preferences from Westmeath.”

The former Longford councillor says one factor, more than any other, influenced the outcome of the election: “You have to remember, you had a very, very credible candidate in Micheál Carrigy and a very, very strong FG team behind him. All the councillors were 100% behind him.

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“They really pulled out all the stops, particularly the lads up in North Longford that were out day and night. I think they really came out strong. I just, as an observer, didn't see that strength and unity amongst the Fianna Fáil team this time round. You know, you'd be hearing bits and pieces, but the Fine Gael team were absolutely rock solid.”

After two days of counting the votes of the 20 candidates on the ballot in the 2024 general election for the 34th Dáil, Longford still has one TD. The likelihood is that he will be aligned to the sitting government. What that will mean for Longford will become apparent in time.