Cork North Central - General Election 2024

dulpit

Hey all,

With the General Election on it's way, how do people see North Central going?

The last election results looked like this:.

According to Adrian Kavanagh's website, the following people have been nominated so far:

Deputy Thomas Gould (Sinn Féin), Deputy Pádraig O’Sullivan (Fianna Fáil), Deputy Colm Burke (Fine Gael), Cllr. Tony Fitzgerald (Fianna Fáil), Cllr. John Maher (Labour Party), Cllr. Oliver Moran (Green Party), Cllr. Joe Lynch (Sinn Féin), Cllr. Garret Kelleher (Fine Gael), Cllr. Eoghan Kenny (Labour Party), Cllr. Ken O’Flynn (Independent Ireland), Rachel Hurley Roche (Independent/Workers Party), Finian Toomey (Aontú), Imelda Daly (Fine Gael), Derek Blighe (Ireland First), Ciarán McCarthy (Social Democrats), Sandra Murphy Kelleher (Fianna Fáil), Susan Doyle (Social Democrats), John Donohoe (Independent)

The constituency is increasing from 4 to 5 seats, and is taking in territory from Cork East and Cork North West. As per the Examiner's website, the main changes are:

In Cork North-Central in particular, the constituency has seen Ballincollig transferred into it from Cork North-West. Three electoral districts in Cork East, including Mallow, are also being transferred into the constituency.

There will likely be a few more people nominated once the election is called, and Mick Barry hasn't been officially nominated yet (but he'll definitely run, right?), but there will be at least 1 new TD for Cork North Central.

The addition of Mallow in particular will have a big impact on North Central. Sean Sherlock, the Labour TD from Cork East, is not running as a big part of his base was Mallow, so you have to imagine there is a Labour vote there - so could that mean a Labour seat for the first time since Kathleen Lynch lost her seat in 2016? Sinn Fein would probably have been targetting 2 seats here a few months back, but is that likely to be the case with their woes lately? And Ken O'Flynn from Independent Ireland looks like he might be in with a shout too.

Brussels Sprout

Gould, O'Sullivan & Burke should all be safe - which is interesting considering all 3 of them were competing for a seat in the 2019 by-election.

I think Kenneth O'Flynn will get elected as well for Independent Ireland. That's probably bad news for Tony Fitzgerald since he'll be taking some of the otherwise FF vote there.

No idea who gets the final seat: Mick Barry, John Maher, Fitzgerald, Garrett Kelleher and Joe Lynch are possibly all in with a shout.

One interesting thing is that most of the parties seem to be running too many candidates (Lab and Soc Dems running 2 each is bananas; Same for FF and FG running 3 each - likely some gender quota padding going on there though). A bloated field will have a knock-on effect when it comes to transfers as it will likely increase leakage. For that reason it's even more vital to get a big number of first preference votes.

For that reason I'll predict that Mick Barry holds on to his seat (if he runs) purely because he's probably the best known of the rest and the other far-left candidate is an unknown (she ran on a south-side LEA in the recent locals)

Very interesting that Derek Blighe has chosen to run in CNC. I believe he is from Fermoy so Cork East would be his natural constituency. I suspect that he took note of the large vote that Ross Lahive got in the local elections. Regardless he hasn't a hope of getting elected but he's got a big enough name to hoover up a lot of the anti-migrant vote - which will probably eventually end up with O'Flynn if he's learned any electioneering tricks from his old man.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122783836#Comment_122783836

I believe that the reason both Labour & Soc Dems are running 2 candidates is geographical spread, 1 for the city and 1 for the Mallow area and hoping that 1 will get the others transfers before they both get eliminated. Risky move though, esp for Labour as I could see John Maher in with a shout.

thejuggler

Sandra Murphy Kelleher is a surprise selection for me. Would have thought her husband - councillor (and former Lord Mayor) Colm Kelleher was a shoe in for the nomination given his strong showing in the recent local elections? Maybe his Ballincollig base isn’t enough in the larger CNC constituency. If I recall correctly Sandra was parachuted in at the last minute in the 2020 GE too

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122784681#Comment_122784681

Any time you see a surprise candidate chosen and it's a women then it's likely that she was chosen in order to meet the party's overall gender quota (40% of candidates in this election, up from 30% in 2020). I believe that some parties are rather cynically picking low profile female candidates to get them onto the ballot but not actually threaten their other candidates.