Familiar faces returned in Athlone electoral area of Roscommon
Although three independents will represent the Athlone area in the next Roscommon County Council, compared to four in the last, it was still a remarkable performance by the non-party candidates, with independents Emer Kelly and Tony Ward taking the first two seats.
Fine Gael were the winners here, securing two seats, up one from last time, whilst Fianna Fáil took one seat. This election saw little change as all outgoing councillors who contested the campaign, were elected again. Former independent councillor Donal Kilduff opted not to seek re-election. The new councillor is a familiar face, in the form of Domnick Connolly who sat on Roscommon County Council for the mid-Roscommon area previously.
Poll-topper Independent candidate, Emer Kelly (24) performed fantastically and was elected with a huge vote (1,946) surpassing the quota 1,403 on the first count. She was co-opted onto the council following the resignation of Athleague's Ivan Connaughton.
Ms Kelly said that she was “over the moon” to be in this position but highlighted that she was the first ever woman to be elected in this electoral area. "Today I'm the first woman that was ever elected in this constituency, which is great and, well, a sad statistic, really, because we're a little bit behind the times."
Independent candidate Tony Ward and Fine Gael candidate John Naughten were also returned to the council following the first count which saw Ward elected in his fifth consecutive local election with 1,786 votes. In 2019, Mr Ward topped the poll for the third successive local election, receiving a whopping 1,800 first preferences. The Curraghboy man has served as a councillor for the last twenty years.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, Fine Gael secured two seats with the aforementioned Naughten along with Domnick Connolly. Naughten said he was "delighted" with the result he received after he was elected in the first count with 1,750 votes. He added that it was the second time that he had increased his vote.
Independent candidate Laurence Fallon, who has been a councillor for the past 15 years, won the fourth seat with 1,497 votes on the third count and said that "it's always nice to win".
Fianna Fáil candidate and outgoing Cathaoirleach John Keogh was elected on the seventh count with 1,442 votes and said that he was “absolutely elated.” Mr Keogh's colleague, James Murray, didn't secure a seat and was eliminated on the ninth count. Mr Keogh acknowledged that there had been a drop in his first preference votes compared with the last local election. His first preference vote dropped from 1,010 last time to 931 on this occasion.
Fine Gael candidate Domnick Connolly took the final seat with 1,116 votes despite not reaching the quota.
Fianna Fáil's James Murray, Independent candidate Dominic Naughton and Sinn Féin candidates Sam Brooks and Joe Harney all missed out on securing seats. Mr Brooks (18) was in contention for the final seat but narrowly missed out to Fine Gael's Domnick Connolly. He said that he was “beyond devastated” and “absolutely crushed” that he lost out on the seat, less than 40 votes behind Connolly. Despite this, Mr Brooks said that was “absolutely delighted” with how his campaign went and “proud” of his result.
Had he been elected, the Taughmaconnell man potentially would have been the youngest candidate in the country and he is optimistic about pursuing a career in politics in the future saying that he would be “99 per cent positive” that his name will be on the ballot paper again in five years time.