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SINN FÉIN FRONTBENCHER David Cullinane hailed an “absolutely phenomenal” first for the party after he brought a running mate over the line in Waterford.
He told The Journal that the party has seen growth in election after election – from 6% when he first stood 22 years ago to guaranteeing at least one third of the vote now – thanks to “hard work on the ground, grinding it out every day and every week and articulating the needs of the people” in the constituency.
He said there was a “bittersweet” feeling to his success last time in 2020 when he got 38% of the vote, as there was no other party candidate to pass on the health spokesperson’s almost entire extra quota of votes to get another TD elected.
Cullinane pointed to a strong branch containing what he dubbed “local leaders” in the city and county, which he and others believe bore fruit during an awkward local election for Sinn Féin last June.
While they struggled in many parts of the country, they managed to overtake Fianna Fáil in terms of councillors on the local authority. It included big wins in rural areas, making them the joint largest party on the council with Fine Gael.
For this past week’s general election, the party’s vote was still down about 5% on 2020. However, it had plenty enough to see Cullinane top the poll, and then for McGuinness to get over the line against outgoing TD Matt Shanahan.
The Independent saw his campaign end in controversy when he had to apologise for broadcasting a visual display on the side of University Hospital Waterford, including on a building housing a palliative care ward. He first defended the display as “fair political comment” before backing down.
A big factor in the win was McGuinness having the west of the county to himself as all other parties ran candidates cloistered in around the city and the mid-county.
The 37-year-old was assisted by disciplined party transfer rates from Cullinane – around 75% of the senior TD’s surplus – and further strong transfers from the Social Democrats, possibly influenced by a last-minute ‘vote left, transfer left’ strategy.
Shanahan’s own camp noted that they were hoping for more transfers from the SocDems’ Mary Roche due to her and the Independent being based close to each other in the city, but their hearts dropped as they could see ballot after ballot containing second, third and fourth preferences for McGuinness – and none for Shanahan.
Some of the senior people in the Shanahan camp told @thejournal_ie earlier that they felt Mary Roche’s transfers were showing a ‘vote left, transfer left’ strategy, with McGuinness picking up second and third preferences from SocDems but leaving Shanahan with none https://t.co/v5YUcWOa72
— Eoghan Dalton (@EoghanDalton) December 1, 2024
It’s not clear if the display had much effect, but some in the count centre this weekend thought it may have swayed preferences of undecided voters who were entering the ballot box in the hours after the controversy occurred.
The party entered Friday’s vote with a sense that they could make a number of unexpected gains across the country thanks to a late shift in polls. So how did the party actually get on? It’s a mixed picture.
Party strategists told The Journal early last week that they believed a late shift in the polls meant they could eye extra seats in Waterford, parts of Dublin and Cork with greater confidence.
Sinn Féin also managed to get two TDs over the line in Dublin South Central thanks to incumbent Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Liberties-based councillor Máire Devine.
Ó Snodaigh had more than two quotas last time around in 2020 so the party added Devine and Daithí Doolan to the ticket this time.
In Dublin Mid-West, the party expected to retain the two seats it secured in 2020 (after Ward won a by-election in 2020). Housing spokesperson Eoin O Bróin and mental health spokesperson Mark Ward were almost certainly also helped by the constituency becoming a five-seater.
However, the party came unstuck in Cork North Central. Sinn Féin had added its press officer and local councillor Joe Lynch to the ticket alongside its TD Thomas Gould who had been elected with over 3,000 votes more than needed four years ago.
On this occasion, the party’s overall share fell from 26% to around 17%. It meant only Gould could get elected and Lynch barely featured in the final shakes, amid strong competition from People Before Profit, Independent Ireland and Labour.
A similar story could be found on the other side of the River Lee where the party witnessed some of its vote hocked off since 2020.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire had topped the poll for Cork South Central then with 24% of the vote, well clear of Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, but that feat was not repeated this weekend.
Instead the party’s vote plunged to around 15% which was shared with Ó Laoghaire’s unsuccessful running mate Michelle Cowhey Shahid. The party was also possibly caught off guard by the Social Democrats’ Pádraig Rice getting a seat.
Ó Laoghaire still had enough to get a seat but their experiences in Cork may make them wary in future elections.
In Louth, Ruairí Ó Murchú has been elected and his running mate Joanna Byrne also looks set to take a seat previously held by Imelda Munster. The party ran a third candidate Antóin Watters, but his whose vote looked set to help Byrne over the line.
The party had three-candidate strategies for Donegal and Cavan-Monaghan, but these did not seem entirely feasible.
There were already two Sinn Féin TDs in Donegal in Pearse Doherty and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. The third candidate there was seasoned councillor Noel Jordan.
The three were spread across the constituency but it would have had to be a very good day for Sinn Féin for them to get three out of five seats in Donegal.
It was a more complicated story in Cavan-Monaghan which is still counting at the time of writing.
Frontbencher Matt Carthy was ahead of the whole pack on 13.5% but his running mates TD Pauline Tully and councillor Cathy Bennett were evenly split on around 9-10% after the first count. They made up 35% of the total vote, just below the last time.
It still looks likely that either Tully or Bennett will get a second seat but the party’s bid to grow its vote may have caused more nerves that it would have liked.
Sinn Féin councillor Joanne Bailey in Waterford said that the party needs to be aggressive with its candidate strategy, saying that it was “too quick to be defeatist” after the June local elections, when it didn’t do as well as hoped.
Bailey told The Journal at the Waterford count that the party took criticism for running a multitude of candidates but said this was crucial to growing its vote in a raft of areas.
She pointed to Waterford and to her own native Carlow-Kilkenny, where the party was polling well enough over the weekend to be unexpectedly in contention for two seats, before eventually finishing with just one.
The five-seat constituency had been written off after Kathleen Funchion was elected to Europe earlier this year. It’s gone with a two-candidate strategy via Carlow and south Kilkenny to try and ensure a vote.
But Kilkenny-based Natasha Newsome Drennan and Carlow’s Aine Gladney-Knox both performed better than initially expected to boost the party. Newsome Drennan took a seat on the final count, just 132 votes ahead of Gladney-Knox who lost out.
“You have to grow the party in these areas and you have to grow the candidates, put them forward. That’s the way we can keep growing and building more mass support,” said Bailey.
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SF are doing as good as they possibly can in a mostly right wing country where the big two strategically do not speak to them no matter what but have at least been forced to piss all over their own history to now lick each other’s ring piece in modern times, sharing power is better than none of them having it. Parts of Ireland would vote zig and zag into the Dail once it was under either FF or FG and that’s just the way it is. I can perfectly understand why alot of working class people don’t vote. SF will never get more seats than a combined FF FG, there are too many well off areas in Ireland to strategically vote to deny it. That’s why hard working people get out of here and emigrate to avoid the taxes to earn proper wages and the dole heads are happy to plod along. Obedient Sheep make up the rest happy to obey FFG and just accept how it is. This is Irish politics and always will be.
@Dan The Man:
Yet most come back.
I have 8 nieces and nephews in the 25-40 age bracket (all with good qualifications)
7 emigrated
6 came back or are shortly due back.
I’m of the generation that emigrated to the likes of the states (as illegals!) in the 80s and 90s, seems more are coming home this time.
@Dan The Man: A true comment and well put Dan
@Jb Walshe: no it’s complete rubbish. The idea that SF are a left wing working class party is laughable. They aren’t. In fact, the opposite. All you have to do is look at the leadership. Private school educated middle class. Better off than you and me probably. Bleeding heart liberals and do gooders (and probably a few whiff of cordite merchants). SF should stick to the North.
Lowest vote share since 1989. Lost 116,000 fpv. “faltered in others” is an understatement. Mary Lou will be getting a phone call from Belfast shortly.
@honey badger: ‘Lowest vote share since 1989′ surely can’t be right: they had zero or one TDs for much of that time.
@Brendan O’Brien: You’re right. It’s the first time since 1989 that their vote share has decreased.
@honey badger: so your first comment is wrong. How many other parties have only increased their for in 35 years?
@Eoin .h: Nope. My first comment lacked coffee. SF lost 116,000 fpv. Fact. First time since 1989 they’ve lost vote share. Also, a fact. Cry more.
@honey badger: have all the top 3 parties votes not decreased, and there are more independents now than ever.
What is your point.
@Colette Byrne: My point is very obvious. Here’s the fpv breakdown. Very marginal loss/gain for FF/FG. The biggest loss is for SF.
FF: 481,417 (-2,903)
FG: 458,134 (+2,550)
SF: 418,627 (-116,968)
SD: 106,028 (+42,624)
LAB: 102,457 (+6,869)
AON: 86,134 (+45,217)
GRN: 66,911 (-88,789)
PBP: 62,481 (+5,061)
I hope this clears things up for you.
@honey badger: SF’s progress has certainly stalled. Just saying ‘change’ over and over didn’t work so well this time.
It had been lucky up to now, but it remains essentially a one-issue party with other policies tacked on for appearances’ sake. It’s hard to see how it can resolve this, as an obsession with getting rid of the border is its whole raison d’etre.
@honey badger: Poor Honey.. you must be the busiest cherry picker in the country.. lol. Context, of which you’re willfully ignorant of, is key. You can try spin it anyway you want.. but it’s both hillarious and hypocritical in equal measure that in 2020, FPVs(when SF had the highest number) meant nothing to the anti shinner bots and it was all about seat numbers. Yet here we are with SF on target to have more seats than 2020 and now it’s all about FPVs .. lol. Here’s a little cherry picking fact for you Honey, FF & FGs combined vote share has declined for the fourth consecutive general election and is now at a record low.
@Brendan O’Brien: ” stalled ” ? They will have secured marginal a seat gain. Sometimes, especially in politics, consolidation is progress. They have more than consolidated their vote and their emergence as a major party in Irish politics. It’s worth remembering that less than 25 yrs ago they had their 1st TD take their seat in the Dail. By any metric or any unbiased political analysis, their rise has been phenomenal in that time. They have changed the landscape of Irish politics that neccesiates the century old establishment parties of FF & FG going into power together.. something unimaginable before the emergence of SF. People’s opinion and often disdain(not without merit in and of itself) for SF clouds their ability to look at Irish politics with any objectivity.
@Brian: I know facts drive you mad, Brian. I merely provided the details of SFs huge loss of votes *whilst in opposition*!(Remember your meltdown when I showed how Daly and Wallace had voted against a motion in the EU parliament condemning the execution of children in Iran. You were very upset and called me all sorts then, too.) As always, and I can’t stress this enough, your opinion is utterly irrelevant to me. I don’t reply to or read any of your comments. You insist on following me around here, though. Off you pop now, like a good lad… ;)
@Brian: But their progress has stalled: that’s just a fact. Their inexorable rise to power has turned out not to be so inexorable after all.
They haven’t consolidated their vote: they have gone backwards in terms of votes received and vote share.
@honey badger: You don’t read or reply to any of my comments? I’m pretty sure you just did.. lol. It’s widely accepted by any intelligible person that facts without context are useless. Those who use them in such manner, i.e. without context, are merely exhibiting their ignorance or their bias.. or both. Don’t worry Honey, as I said before, I’m here educate you and to help contextualise your “facts”.
@Brendan O’Brien:Brendan, you’re being as disingenuous as the bauld Honey now.. It’s not a “fact” their progress has stalled. Winning more seats than 2020, as they’re projected to do is not stalling, it’s a marginal gain. That’s a fact. Now if you want to play the FPVs game, then you’d do well to remember how they were dismissed by people like you in 2020 and seats were all that counted. Also, I don’t know where you’re getting this “inexorbale rise to power” from, I certainly don’t appreciate you trying to attach it to me or my comments.. I mentioned their rise as a major party. Why don’t you address the fact FF & FGs combined vote share has declined for the fourth consecutive general election and is now at a record low. You’re a dab hand at the auld cherry picking yourself.
@Brian: I didn’t try to attach anything to you or your comments. The ‘inexorable rise to power’ theme has been widespread in the media and among SF supporters and members, especially after the 2020 election, when many of them thought that 23% of the vote gave them an absolute right to be in government (and that being in government North and South would cause the border to magically disappear).
You’re putting a brave face on it, but you have to admit that that that apparent momentum has stalled. Sooner or later we all have to live in the real world.
@Brian: Of course I did, but only in reply to your usual kerfuffle when I present the facts. Framing SF losing 116,000 votes in the lowest electoral turnout since 1923 (whilst being the main opposition party™) is your own business. Knock yourself out, Brian! You do the excuses, I’ll do the facts. As always.
@Brendan O’Brien: Would this be the 23 % of FPVs that people like yourself widely criticised them for citing as a “victory” in the election.. the same FPVs that anti shinners are chiming about now ? Seats are what count, as you would have been quick to point out post 2020.You can’t have it both ways Brendan. And you’re not really addressing any of my points.. 1st the fact that a marginal seat gain is not ” stalling”.. and for the 3rd time can you address FF & FGs combined vote share declining for the fourth consecutive general election and now at a record low. And for the umpteenth time, I’m not a SF supporter, I do however like to look at things objectively.. This is the real world.. they’re a major party in it.. it’s you who seemingly can’t face up to that fact.
@honey badger: Someone take the shovel of this auld codger..
@honey badger: can’t be right,don’t think they had a td til the early nineties.
@Deano74: It is right. Running for election and being elected aren’t the same thing. As you’ll see here:
I presume that Cullinane didn’t shout ‘Up the RA!’ this time.
@Brendan O’Brien: Well as sure as there’s shite in a goose he did .
@Gerry Campbell: Not in public, anyway.
@Brendan O’Brien: Good public service today brendan, we are relying on you for troll activity reports. Keep it up and we’ll done for your efforts.
@Basildon Joe: In fairness, you’re not difficult to spot, in any of your profiles. A convincing pretence at being English is way beyond you.
The journal has descended into the sewer of the internet with the amount of trolls.
SF can spin all they want but with 14 extra seats up for grabs they are currently on 36. It shows they aren’t gaining new supporters.They have to get a new leader or else next GE the likes of SocDems and Labour will take seats from them. Mary Lou at this stage is stale, pale and female and has brought SF as far as she can. Hopefully somebody will have a word in her ear.
Sinn Fein is a cult not a party and have a very light hold on what democracy is
have your say