How Mayo's five TDs are faring a year after general election
by Dr. Richard Martin
A year on from the general election, held on November 29, 2024, it's time to examine how have the five victors prospered and more importantly will there be casualties at the next general election?
In Mayo, the turnout was at 63.6% with 70,866 valid votes from an electorate of 112,205.
The opinion polls nationally, at the time of the 2024 election, placed FF at 22%, FG at 21%, SF at 19%, while Independents were at 13% and Aontú 4%.
Right now, SF are at 23%, FG 19%, FF 18% and Independents are at 15% in the polls.
Last year, Sinn Féin's Rose Conway-Walsh topped the poll. She got 14.3% of the first preference vote with 10,117 votes and was elected on the sixth count with 11,963 votes.
She was the first woman to top the poll in Mayo in the history of the free state and retained her seat in the process.
Alan Dillon and Dara Calleary both were returned on the eighth count with 13,174 and 13,097 votes, respectively.
Dillon got 13.4% of the first preference vote (FPV) with 9,517 and Calleary received 12.2%, which equated to 8,620 FPV.
Keira Keogh and Paul Lawless were both elected on the 11th count with 12,475 and 9,506 votes, respectively. Keogh's FPV was 8.2% (5,830) and Paul Lawless’ FPV was 6.3% (4,482).
Patsy O’Brien (Independent) and Mark Duffy (FG) were placed 6th and 7th, respectively. O'Brien's final vote was 8,258.
So, where are we now? What would happen if an election was called in the morning?
Personally, I feel the top three finishers are unbreakable. RCW, Dillon and Calleary would all be returned to the Dáil if there was an election tomorrow morning.
There are several reasons for this. Geography is a crucial factor.
Dillon has had the run of Castlebar to himself for a few years and operates an excellent constituency office.
He cleaned out the boxes in the Castlebar district in 2024. He received 6,011 votes. In comparison, Lisa Chambers (representing FF) received 2,318 votes.
The FG candidate beat the FF candidate in the county town by over two to one. Given the proud history of FF in the town with representation from the Flynns and Micheál Ó Móráin over the decades, this is rock bottom territory.
It will take a politician of real talent and ability to take his office on and, more importantly, they need to have the work rate to match it.
FF in the county town can only move upwards. They need a figure to rally around and believe in. Harry and Caoilinn Gaughan are both heavily involved the party. Daithí Gallagher is another name being mentioned. If nothing changes, nothing changes.
Given that FF had its best election since 2011, returning 48 seats to the Dáil, the party's performance in Mayo was abysmal.
Remember, four Mayo FF TDs were elected to Dáil Éireann in 1992.
Until the Blackie situation is resolved fully, it’s virtually impossible to move on.
We have the bizarre and unprecedented situation of an FF elected councillor voting against his own party in the council chamber and he’s still wearing the FF badge.
How do you start afresh when this fiasco is still unresolved?
It’s a total distraction from the rejuvenation that needs to take place.
Ballina is interesting. And congested. There are three offices there now - FF (Calleary), FG (Duffy) and SF (RCW). In the Ballina district boxes last year, Calleary received 4,418 votes, Duffy 4,290 and RCW 2,149 votes.
How will it play out going forward?
Well, Calleary is a senior minister at the Department of Social Protection. It’s a spending ministry and he’s spending.
He has huge ability. I witnessed a speech he gave at the children’s hospice launch in the TF. It was mostly off the cuff interspersed with slivers of fluent Irish. And it made a lot of sense. Only a handful in Dáil Éireann have that ability.
First elected to the Dáil in 2007, a member of an FF dynasty, and a survivor of the wipe-out of 2011, he is the most senior politician in the county by a distance. His seat is safe. The question is does he have the ambition to go after the leadership of FF? I hope he does.
In the likelihood that SF enter government after the next election, RCW will be a senior cabinet minister.
But will Duffy make it? Can Ballina have three TDs?
The biggest problem Mark Duffy faces is his location. Geography.
Ballina is right on the Mayo/Sligo border and all its politicians there have to fight for votes away from its natural hinterland.
He’s young, intelligent and hungry. His sister, Marie-Thérése, was co-opted to the council in his stead. She also has the precious discretionary funding.
He gave a superlative speech when Joe Biden arrived in Ballina a few years back.
Some in Ballina FG were somewhat aggrieved when he joined the party last year. Some are still aggrieved. They felt it was opportunistic and that he wasn’t a ‘true blue’.
That’s nonsense. His vote in Ballina last year shows that he has a massive groundswell of support. He split the town with Calleary. That takes a bit of doing. After the GE he ran for the senate and won a seat in the Oireachtas.
I can only see two Mayo FG TDs being returned at the next GE. So Duffy's main opposition is his party colleague Keira Keogh in Westport.
The key battleground is Belmullet. Erris was always a Ring stronghold. Duffy got 118 votes to Keira Keogh's 1,122 votes in 2024.
If FG go with a three candidate strategy the support for Councillor Alma Gallagher could prove decisive. She represents Ballyhaunis and pledged her allegiance to Keira Keogh and Alan Dillon in 2024.
If she were to change tack and support Duffy in Ballina, that could change his fortunes completely. And hers, if she wanted to pursue a career in the senate.
There is a sting in the tail. What if Alma Gallagher was added to the ticket as a fourth FG candidate?
She has huge ability and has been immersed in FG politics for decades. Her patron is former councillor John Cribbin – a man that commanded huge respect across all party divides.
Being based in Ballyhaunis means she would hurt Paul Lawless and Patsy O'Brien. I don’t think she’d win a seat, but she could potentially elect Duffy. He had no-one underneath him to push him for home the last time.
Will Paul Lawless keep his seat? As I write, I would say yes. His location is his key asset. His main rival is O'Brien.
People by and large vote for their own. Belmullet backed RCW. Castlebar backed Dillon. Westport backed Keogh. Ballina backed Calleary and south Mayo backed Lawless. His sister, Deirdre, was co-opted in his stead so that means he has the crucial discretionary spending at his disposal.
He rode a cascade of successful transfers which helped him leapfrog from eighth in the first count to snatch the final and fifth seat. He was the only candidate not to reach the quota.
What could stop him? A few things.
When Stephen Kerr was eliminated, a significant proportion of transfers went to Lawless and gave him a strong push for home.
There was a strong overlap between both camps in the weeks before the GE.
What happens if Kerr doesn’t run the next time? The immigration issue may have subsided - which I think it will under the leadership of Jim O’Callaghan, and the electorate may be more focused on the issues of housing and rent.
Lawless's election agent John Bryan was expelled from Aontú in October after it was revealed he was involved in a racist antisemitic WhatsApp group with other Ógra Aontú members.
Aontú expelled the members who partook in the shameful racist activities and issued a statement condemning their behaviour and distancing themselves from the scandal.
Paul Lawless can’t be blamed for any of that, it’s not his fault, but it’s not helpful press either.
O'Brien wasn’t a million miles off last year. He’s a poll-topping councillor. He flies the independent banner, but he was a lifelong FG activist and Michael Ring’s director of elections.
He’s in the game a long time. In the 2024 GE, he cleaned out Claremorris with 4,292 votes. If an election was called in the morning, he could take over 5,000 votes out of Claremorris. Basically, with O'Brien, if he doesn’t get elected, his transfers will decide who does.
SF have broken huge ground in Mayo over the past five years. They have a locked in safe seat in RCW. She polls strongly in all the booths across the county and she commands huge personal respect.
Can SF identify a second candidate? Or are they happy to return a single TD. It begs the question does RCW want a second strong candidate?
A strong candidate in the Castlebar area could hurt her own FPV.
The only activist I’ve met in Mayo SF (outside of RCW) with the talent to go for the Dáil is Hugh Armstrong from Knockmore.
He fits the bill. Irish athlete, accountant and handsome. A sound man too. It couldn’t pass him. His father Ollie is a champ and a close friend of mine.
But the geography is all wrong. Mayo SF needs to find talent in south Mayo to push for a second seat.
The most vulnerable seat is the Westport one.
Politics is blood sport and the wolves are always at the door. No seat is ever safe.
Where once people from Castlebar and further afield went to Westport looking for Ring, they now come to Castlebar looking for Orla in Dillon's office.
Ring became Ring because no-one had his hunger, work ethic and drive. He was the greatest rural TD in the history of the state and transformed his home town.
An extraordinary man.
Ring believes in Keira Keogh and history has taught us time and again you never ever underestimate Michael Ring.
I met RCW at a function for Community Radio Castlebar a few weeks ago.
Her schedule that day was a function in Claremorris, then Castlebar, then Westport, then Castlebar, then Ballina and then back to Belmullet.
That’s the work rate that’s required to become a poll topper. It’s relentless. And unforgiving.
In politics only the fittest survive.