Strong showing by three first time General Election candidates from Longford

The headline act in the festival that was Longford's input to General Election 2024 was the clash between Micheál Carrigy (FG) and Joe Flaherty (FF), however the support band of Gerry Warnock (Independent), Barry Campion (Sinn Féin) and Dave Smyth (People Before Profit Solidarity) was one that provided more entertainment than anticipated.

The three first time candidates put in a good showing in a crowded field. It was anticipated from the outset, even before the tallies were complete, that there would be six contenders for five seats.

The challenge for the remaining 14 players was to put in a respectable showing. People Before Profit have very little profile in the Republic outside of Dublin, excluding two council seats.

Longford candidate Smyth netted a respectable 960 first preference votes, putting him in 12th place after the first count.

“I'm delighted,” Dave told the Leader of his achievement. “What I was trying to say to people was that we need to change the system. Stop allowing establishment parties to not deal with serious crises. That resonated with a lot of young people.”

The PBP candidate said the party can build on the result. “The way I look at it is that we made our mark here. A lot of people didn't know who People Before Profit were, now they know. We are going to build on this and grow. We have had a lot of new people join the party in the two counties since the campaign began.

“Unfortunately, everyone below me was from Westmeath, so I wasn't going to pick up enough transfers to stay in contention, but it was an amazing first preference vote,” Dave said.

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He continued, “There is disappointment nationally at the loss of seats of people on the left. In my opinion the poor turnout had a significant impact on that.”

When north Longford Sinn Féin candidate, Barry Campion, was eliminated on count 12 he was just 13 votes shy of the 3,000 mark. The statistic of the election is undoubtedly the party's vote management which saw his party colleague elected.

The vast majority of Campion's votes, a total of 2,353, stayed with the party as Sorca Clarke got elected on the 13 count.

First-time General Election candidate Campion was delighted by the support he received from voters. “Absolutely thrilled. When the votes started coming in (during tallying on Saturday), we could see the momentum was building. When I hit 1,000, I was happy, but then it kept creeping up. The fact we nearly hit 3,000 shows the appetite for change among voters. So, yeah, I'm really happy.”

Observer's marvelled at the candidate's transfer-friendly progress that saw him start out with 2,344 votes. The Sinn Fein member couldn't pinpoint the reason for his steady progress in the early counts. “It's hard to answer directly, but we really invested in the campaign, in getting out through as many forms of media as possible.

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“We engaged with the paper and on radio. We attended every debate, every hustings. Our social media, which wasn't handled directly by myself, but our team was really, was really good. We find that since the local elections social media is playing such a huge part in campaigning.”

Barry hopes to build on his General Election success. “I'll continue my engagement with the community. We go around solving problems for people, be it on housing, be it on management of estates, or in any way we can. We'll continue with that, being involved on the ground the whole time. Sinn Féin are known for being active in communities every day, all year.”

With over 13 years of political representation under his belt no one could call Gerry Warnock a novice, but the step up from local politics to national did not happen.

“I suppose it didn't go my way this time,” a circumspect Gerry told the Leader. “There are a couple of different factors there.

First and foremost, when you look at the Longford end of it, the parties are particularly strong, nearly unbreakable. That's just the stark reality of it. There's still a massive party vote.”

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The strength of the parties was augmented by who they put forward. “They had two good candidates. Micheál Carrigy got elected this time, as a very credible candidate, coming from a very, very strong base after his last run at national level and his intervening time as a senator.

“Geography and population were also a factor. Westmeath's bigger population, along with two growth centres in Mullingar and Athlone, makes it very hard for Longford to compete for two seats.”

He says the silver lining is the resumption of family life. “I'm going to take a step back for a little while. I'm nearly 14 years consumed with politics. I just want to be normal, get out of the bubble, and have a bit of time with the family. You know, particularly my little man, he kind of missed me for the last while, I nearly abandoned the kids over the course of this campaign.”

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

“The thing that I was most disappointed about was the extremely low turnout in Longford town,” Gerry said of the figures, “I kind of analysed the 12 urban boxes there yesterday, and it just barely scraped 40% in those 12 boxes. Going into the meat of it, there was one particular box in my town that would have been traditionally a strong box for me. I took 50% of all the votes in that box, but only 27% turned out.”

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He has no regrets about the race he ran. “I am proud of the campaign I ran, and super proud of the team and of my family, friends and volunteers. You know, that I couldn't have actually done it without their support. We didn't let the side down, didn't let ourselves down.

“It was a very respectable show, given all those circumstances. It definitely wouldn't deter me from running again. I'm just happy enough now. I'm just going to decompress for a few months.”