Election 2024: Greenway row could be a factor in Westport four-seater

No of Seats: 4 

Candidates (9): Peter Flynn (Fine Gael); Karen Gallagher (Sinn Féin); Christy Hyland (Non-Party); Keira Keogh (Fine Gael); Chris Maxwell (Independent Ireland); Niall McCormack (Irish Freedom Party); Brendan Mulroy (Fianna Fáil); Peter Nolan (Green Party); John O’Malley (Non-Party).

One of the big surprises in Westport is that Fianna Fáil is only running one candidate, outgoing councillor Brendan Mulroy. Fine Gael, by contrast, has two candidates (outgoing councillor Peter Flynn and newcomer Keira Keogh), and there are another two outgoing councillors (Christy Hyland and John O’Malley), who originally won their seats as Fine Gael representatives. It is a curious imbalance and it will be interesting to see how it plays out on Friday.

On paper, Westport looks fairly straightforward and there is every chance that the four sitting councillors will be returned. But there are also a few unknowns, not least the performance of the two female candidates in the race, Fine Gael’s Keogh and Sinn Féin’s Karen Gallagher.

The opinion polls tell us that Sinn Féin will attract one in four votes in the next general election but will that be the case in the locals? If it is, Karen Gallagher should be fighting for a seat in Westport, but it remains to be seen whether national trends will be reflected in the local elections.

Keira Keogh is a member of a well-known Westport business family and has been heavily involved in Junior Chamber International, so she is well qualified to challenge for a seat. But she faces some battle-hardened veterans in Peter Flynn, Christy Hyland and John O’Malley, all of whom know what it takes to get the vote out.

Flynn was first elected in 2009 after serving his political apprenticeship on Westport Town Council, and he made a successful comeback in 2019, having opted out of politics five years earlier. He has been one of the most vocal members of Mayo Co Council in recent years so it will be interesting to see if his high media profile translates into votes.

Christy Hyland topped the poll in 2019 and the retired detective garda is expected to regain his seat. His erstwhile Fine Gael colleague John O’Malley was another who regained their seat in 2019, having unexpectedly lost it five years earlier when he was the outgoing Cathaoirleach of the council. 

O’Malley will hope to draw on a rural vote from his native Kilmeena, which has seen its population expand in recent years, as well as Newport where there is no locally-based candidate. Any man who regained his seat is not to be written off lightly and O’Malley will hope to benefit from the recent Murrisk greenway controversy in which he has been a very vocal supporter of the landowners. Peter Flynn, on the other hand, has been very vocal in his support of the greenway and there is some speculation that it might cost him votes. 

The Green Party has tended to poll respectably in Westport but its candidate Peter Nolan will need to improve significantly on the 365 votes the party got in 2019. The Irish Freedom Party is running its only Mayo candidate in Westport in the form of Niall McCormack. However, the most intriguing contender is Louisburgh-based Chris Maxwell, whose prospects are discussed in more depth elsewhere on this page.

Fianna Fáil might be only running one candidate but Brendan Mulroy did not have to rely on party transfers to get across the line in 2019 and the sense is that he might be a little stronger this time around. It would be a huge shock were the party to be left without a councillor in Westport but were it to happen questions would inevitably be asked about the one-candidate strategy.