Change has finally come to Mayo politics

In just two Dáil terms the political order in Mayo has been transformed.

We wrote last week about how it was historic that Mayo elected two women to the Dáil for the first time ever.

In electing Rose Conway-Walsh and Paul Lawless, the Mayo electorate also bridged a 63-year gap to the last time more than one candidate outside of the old order of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were elected.

That was 1961 when Joe Leneghan was elected as an Independent in Mayo North while the redoubtable driving force of Clann na Talmhan, Joe Blowick, ran for the last time and was elected in Mayo South. Of course, you could argue that the fact that Leneghan subsequently joined Fianna Fáil and was elected to the Dáil for them in 1969 puts an asterisk beside that. But it is simply remarkable how much Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominated from there on.

From 1965 up to the 2020 election, across 15 general elections and two by-elections, only twice did any candidate break that duopoly.

The first instance was Jerry Cowley’s election as an Independent in 2002. However, he lost his seat in 2007. And if an asterisk is placed beside Joe Leneghan’s 1961 election as an Independent in 1961, it definitely has to be affixed to Beverley Flynn’s success in 2007 as an Independent. She was the very definition of a Fianna Fáil gene pool candidate as the daughter of former Fianna Fáil Minister and TD Pádraig and herself elected for the party in 1997 and 2002. She stood down from politics before the 2011 election, where Fine Gael took four of the five seats in Mayo, Dara Calleary being the sole Fianna Fáiler returned.

The more time went on, the more Cowley’s election in 2002 seemed an outlier. He ran in three elections since, averaging a vote in the mid-3,000s. Indeed, by the time of the 2016 General Election, no constituency in the country had as big a vote for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael than Mayo. Over 78% of first preference votes cast were in favour of a candidate from either party. The next closest constituency was Carlow/Kilkenny well back on 67.7%. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were at just over 50% nationally so the Mayo figures were hugely out of sync.

It must be added that Mayo had the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny, a Minister for State and one of the biggest vote getters in the country, Michael Ring, as well as Fianna Fáil duo Dara Calleary and Lisa Chambers elected. Outgoing Fine Gael TD Michelle Mulherin lost her seat while Rose Conway-Walsh polled an impressive 6,414 votes in such a strong field and was eliminated after the ninth count.

So whether the strong percentage vote in Mayo was in favour of the two parties or because of their strong candidates is hard to be certain about. Indeed, it is likely a bit of both. But it was continuing a remarkable trend of dominance in Mayo by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Often the only debate was the seat breakdown.

In every general election from 1977 to 1992 (a total of seven elections), Fianna Fáil returned four out of the six TDs in Mayo – two in West Mayo and two in East Mayo. Fine Gael had to make do with just one TD in each area.

When Mayo became a countywide constituency in 1997, Fine Gael finally upended that dominance, taking three of the five seats (Michael Ring, Enda Kenny and Jim Higgins) with Beverley Flynn and Tom Moffatt the two Fianna Fáil representatives.

It was two apiece (Flynn and John Carty for Fianna Fáil, Ring and Kenny, just, for Fine Gael) along with Cowley in 2002. Fine Gael took three again in 2007 before taking four in 2011.

So when Rose Conway-Walsh was elected to the Dáil in 2020, she broke a phenomenal run of dominance. She was the first person elected for any party other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael since Joseph Blowick (Clann na Talmhan) in 1961 and she did it in emphatic style, being elected on the first count and had the temerity to nearly top the poll ahead of Michael Ring. She was also the first Sinn Féin TD elected in Mayo since John Madden in Mayo North in 1927. Coincidentally that is the last time Labour had someone elected to the Dáil in Mayo, Thomas J O’Connell in Mayo South. It sums up the barren ground Mayo has been for most other political parties.

The 2020 election saw the combined Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vote dip from 78% in 2016 to 63.6%. As well as Conway-Walsh, the Green Party’s Saoirse McHugh and Aontú’s Paul Lawless also ate into that dominance.

Lawless took great sustenance from his performance in 2020 where, as a relative unknown, he took 2,574 votes. He came back in 2024 full of ambition. His election with Conway-Walsh’s last week represents a seismic shift in Mayo politics. The combined Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael vote has dropped from 78% to 55% in just eight years. 

Fine Gael were hoping for three seats on a good day. They had to make do with two. Fianna Fáil were targeting two but only left with one.

Can the traditional big two parties wrest back control in Mayo? They will need to do so without Michael Ring and Enda Kenny, their absences being a considerable factor in the fall in support.

Conway-Walsh’s breakthrough in 2020 now appears transformative. She returned this time around to comfortably consolidate her seat, making history as the first woman to top the poll in Mayo.

Paul Lawless will be hoping to follow in her electoral footsteps and will know his low first preference tally this time might not be enough next time around.

Fine Gael will still aim for three seats next time out but while Mark Duffy polled really well in his first general election, his peripherality saw him struggle for transfers. It is hard to see three TDs from North Mayo elected when one looks at the demographics so he will likely need to unseat either Dara Calleary or Rose Conway-Walsh. No easy task.

Fianna Fáil, meanwhile, will have to decide who will accompany Dara Calleary next time out. Lisa Chambers had indicated this was her last run at the Dáil and her performance is unlikely to be a source of encouragement in changing her mind.

Maybe, next time out, holding the three seats between them might represent a good return the way the numbers have changed.