Mayo election wrap up: Swinford count dramatic, with just a single vote the decider
THE Swinford Electoral Area local election count produced lots of drama, with two recounts needed before the outcome of who would take their place on Mayo County Council was decided.
A recount was requested after the two bottom candidates were separated by a single vote - Fine Gael's Neil Cruise on 1,637 and Sinn Féin's John Sheahan on 1,636, with Sheahan poised to lose out on the final seat.
At it turned out, that single vote was to be the decider as Cruise retained his seat on the council, with Sheahan missing out.
Sheahan's Sinn Féin colleague Gerry Murray was the first councillor deemed elected on day one of the count - Sunday.
The fifth count saw the distribution of Murray's surplus and it left the four remaining candidates (for three seats) on the following number of votes:
John Caulfield (FF) 1,641
Neil Cruise (FG) 1,637
Adrian Forkan (FF) 1,668
John Sheahan (SF) 1,636
Returning officer Condon proceeded to exclude the lowest remaining candidate (Sheahan) and deemed Forkan, Cruise and Caulfield elected. However, the result was not officially declared and he informed the count centre, after cheers erupted, that he had received a request for a recount and under the circumstances that was a reasonable request.
After a lengthy counting of votes, the status quo remained as originally announced.
So what did we learn from the day's events, regardless of the result?
For starters, Gerry Murray remained as consistent as ever in returning home first in the race.
Sinn Féin's campaign saw his colleague Sheahan given a good bulk of east Mayo in what was seen as an achieveable two seats. The party was certainly spot on with that assessment, bucking the trend across the county where SF candidates were pretty much ruled out at very early stages.
Early tallies had Sinn Féin looking to be heading towards a unique double with long-serving Charlestown councillor Murray and Swinford's Sheahan leading as boxes were opened and tallied. That ebbed and flowed as the counts progressed, with Sheahan ultimately in a dogfight for the last seat.
As votes were distributed as counts progressed, Murray was cognisant of the fact that many people this time out chose to vote locally as much as politically.
That impact of the local vote was probably true of keen footballer Adrian Forkan who scored the biggest goal of his career when coming out second to Murray in the first round of votes.
The Kiltimagh man native was in a unique position within the local authority as being the only sitting councillor never to have faced the electorate before. Co-opted a year ago to replace his Swinford Fianna Fáil colleague Michael Smyth, after he stepped away from politics, he had 12 months to prove himself to the people and clearly they felt he had something to offer.
The tallies showed a big bounce for Forkan in the Kiltimagh town boxes and his home polling station of Kinaffe saw him nudge ahead of Murray to top the poll in the tallies at one stage.
With half the boxes open, Sheahan had been sitting on 19% of the vote (868) with Gerry Murray on 18% (839).
Kiltimagh has been without a councillor for nine of the last 10 years and the two town school boxes and down the road in Kinaffe screamed of a desire keep the one they were gifted without a ballot, with voter turnout up significantly in all three.
Swinford had two strong candidates to choose from in Sheahan and Fine Gael first-timer Antoinette Peyton.
Peyton, in particular, is one for the future, a young candidate who ran a positively impressionable campaign, and there's nothing to be snuffed about with 877 No. 1 votes.
John Caulfield more than held his own, attracting votes here, there and everywhere, and should be pleased with how his vote increased marginally, considering a contender in the Kiltimagh area and also Kilmovee's Tommy Horan, Aontú, who ran a good campaign but probably disappointed to see his vote taking a slight dip from his last outing five years ago.