Laois and Offaly may no longer be constituency colleagues when it comes to the General Election but there is still considerable interest in what is happening across the county border.
And the new three-seat constituency in Offaly looks like being one of the most fascinating in the country, with a selection of new candidates and new names on the ballot paper for all of the main political parties.
For a start, there is at least one extra seat up for grabs.
In the 2020 General Election, three of the five TDs elected in Laois-Offaly were from Laois – Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley, Fine Gael’s Charlie Flanagan and Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming.
Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen and Independent Carol Nolan were Offaly’s two representatives in the Dáil. Now Offaly has three seats and with Cowen recently elected as an MEP, Nolan is the only sitting TD seeking re-election.
Offaly will also have an outgoing Minister for State, the Green Party’s Pippa Hackett, on the ballot paper while Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin will all have new candidates.
The battle in Fianna Fáil is most interesting in a county where the party have traditionally done extremely well. They currently have eight of the 19 councillors in Offaly, including four alone out of seven in the Tullamore area.
For the first time since 1969, it seems there won’t be a Cowen name on the ballot paper. Ber Cowen was first elected a TD on that occasion and following his death, Brian won the seat in the 1984 by-election and held it until he retired in 2011, after which his brother Barry took on the mantle, comfortably being elected in 2011, 2016 and 2020.
Barry has previously gone on the record to say that none of the extended Cowen family are interested in running.
If that remains the case, then there could be a right battle within Fianna Fáil to see who gets on the party ticket. No date has been set yet for their convention but it’s expected that, unlike in Laois with Sean Fleming, they will run two candidates.
Cllr Peter Ormond from Shinrone was Cowen’s running mate in 2020 and got just over 4,000 first preferences though was never in the running for a seat. But he topped the poll in the recent Local Elections in the Birr district.
Closer to here, Cllr Eddie Fitzpatrick, from Cloneyhurke outside of Portarlington, topped the poll in the Edenderry area (with the biggest individual vote in Offaly) and came close to winning a seat in Offaly in 2016 when it was last a three-seater, albeit with a bit of North Tipperary, which it won’t have on this occasion.
In the Tullamore area, Cllr Tony McCormack, who is from the town itself, has declared his interest while there is also an expectation that Cllr Frank Moran, who is from the Cowen’s home base in Clara, may seek the nomination.
If two candidates are on the ticket, then one of them is likely to be a woman in order to help Fianna Fáil reach the quota of 40% and Cllr Claire Murray from the Edenderry area is the leading candidate on that count.
Fine Gael have their selection convention this Thursday evening – where Cllrs John Clendennen from Kinnitty will go up against Cllr Neil Feighery from Killoughey near Tullamore.
Both are in their late 30s/early 40s and were comfortably elected in the Locals – Clendennen in the Birr district and Feighery in Tullamore, where he topped the poll and was elected on the first count.
This will be Clendennen’s third time to contest the convention, narrowly missing out to Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy prior to the 2011 General Election and then being selected as her running mate, but later withdrawing, ahead of 2020.
Clendennen’s father Percy was also a long-serving councillor and close ally of Tom Enright in Birr who was a Fine Gael TD for a number of years, as was his daughter Olwyn.
Feighery, incidentally, was Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy’s parliamentary assistant when she was a TD.
Sinn Féin, who had Carol Nolan elected in 2016, lost their three council seats in the 2019 Local Elections – but there was a big vote for Brian Stanley in Offaly in the 2020 Generals.
They have since won a seat in each of the three areas in the Locals and one of them, Aoife Masterson in Tullamore, is expected to contest the General.
One name that won’t be contesting is Cllr John Leahy – he ran in 2011 and 2016 as an Independent and then in 2020 as leader of the now-defunct Renua party.
He recently announced that he won’t be running.
A General Election has to be held by next February, though could be as early as November.
And what happens in Offaly – both in the election itself and in the lead-up – will be very interesting to observe.
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