Major battle likely for final Dáil seat in Mayo

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

No election in November but make no mistake the election campaign is already underway.

The last Fine Gael selection convention was held on Monday night and, by tradition, it was in the home constituency of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

This week I’m going to continue my potted series on the four constituencies within the readership area of this newspaper. Last time it was Galway East. Now it is Mayo. I will run the figures on Galway West and Roscommon-Galway over the next few weeks.

The first thing to note about Mayo is that it won massively for Fine Gael in 2011. The party amassed an incredible 65% of the vote and won four seats out of five. That was unprecedented. I think we will probably see Halley’s Comet float through the skies again before we see that feat repeated in Irish politics.

The party has been more or less in the ascendancy over Fianna Fáil here since 1997 when two three-seat constituencies became one five-seater.

I was working in the RTÉ newsroom at the time and when Sean O’Rourke came to me I used the rather clunky metaphor that it was like squashing six Sumo wrestlers into a mini. You just couldn’t do it. In the end, Fine Gael got three out of five. The big news for Fianna Fail though was that Beverly Cooper Flynn made it to the Dáil – but the Flynn dynasty did not last.

In 2011 Kenny himself got an impressive 1.4 quotas even with tight vote discipline. It was a contrast to 2002 when Kenny was ahead of Jim Higgins by only a handful of votes and survived by the skin of his teeth. Michael Ring is the other big phenomenon here.

But there’s going to be big changes here this time around too and it’s not going to a happy hunting ground for Fine Gael.

Mayo has been reduced from a five seat to a four seat constituency to accommodate changes in other constituencies. That has mean that a big chunk of South Mayo, with a population of more than 10,000, has moved into Galway West. That includes Ballinrobe, Cong, Kilmaine, Neale and Shrule as well as Garrymore.

John O’Mahony (a former Mayo and Galway football manager) has migrated south with that vote and will stand in Galway West. Of the remainder it is Ring who will be most affected – he pulled upwards of 2,000 votes from this area the last time around.

Fine Gael is more or less guaranteed two seats Fianna Fáil will definitely retain its one seat. You can even put the names on them. Kenny will top the poll, Ring will be there or thereabouts after the First Count as will Dara Calleary of Fianna Fail.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.