LATEST Longford #LE24 | Fine Gael poised to claim four seats in Granard with massive 59% of vote
Fianna Fáil not throwing in towel on clinging onto final seat through David Cassidy
With no candidates officially elected yet, counting is set to resume in the Longford local elections this morning, Sunday, June 9, in Edgeworthstown.
The latest state of play from Granard Municipal District, based on the tallies, is that Fine Gael is poised to claim four of the five seats on offer as they secured a massive 59% of the first preference vote while Fianna Fáil, on 17.7% of the vote, are in serious danger of losing their only seat in the area which was held by Cllr PJ Reilly, who didn't seek re-election.
According to tallies, FG's Garry Murtagh spectacularly topped the poll with 1,459 votes, making him the highest vote getter in the county and one of three candidates to surpass the predicted quota of 1,191 on the First Count.
His running mate Paraic Brady also surpassed the quota on 1,212 and Colin Dalton, running in his first election after he was co-opted in 2020 to fill the vacancy left by Senator Micheál Carrigy, tallied 830 and will take a seat.
Granard post master Padraig McNamara is the 4th FG candidate and with a tally of 700 first preferences he is likely to have enough transfers from his FG running mates to get him over the line but it will be a close fought thing as Fianna Fáil's David Cassidy isn't without hope. Tallies show him on 543.
Fianna Fáil's two other candidates in the race Susan Murphy and Marett Smith tallied 430 and 291, respectively, so Cassidy will be very much reliant on transfers if he is going to scrape in.
Granard poll topper in the 2019 election and the highest vote getter in the county five years, Independent Turlough McGovern once again polled brilliantly, with tallies putting him on 1,416; just 43 votes behind Murtagh and well clear of the quota. McGovern hoovered up 19.8% of the vote, more than FF's two candidates (17.7%) combined.
Sinn Féin's first time candidate Barry Campion tallied 256, the lowest of the nine candidates, and 3.6% of the vote.