Election 2024 key race alerts: We analyse the counts that matter most

Counting is under way across the country – and each constituency has its own backdrop of political intrigue and turf wars, while playing its role in the national picture. The Irish Times will be monitoring key races – the contests that will tell the story of the count as the 34th Dáil is pulled together. Keep track of the most important moments that matter below. Follow live news updates here.
Welcome back to our key race alerts live story this Sunday morning. The first thing we are going to look at today are the Fine Gael incumbency battles.
Earlier we looked at some seats where Fine Gael is defending without an incumbent on board – having lost 18 TDs to retirement in this cycle. We’ll cover off the rest of those constituencies now we have first counts in – and check back in on holds or losses later.
Dublin Bay North is looking like a safe hold for Fine Gael, with Naoise Ó’Muiri in the fourth seat as it stands and a strong performance from his running mate Aoibheann Tormey, who took 5,313 first preference votes.
Meath West is a battle and a half, with Linda Nelson Murray chasing a 300-odd vote deficit to Fianna Fáil’s Aisling Murray, and Noel French (FG gene pools) preferences now being distributed.
In Laois, Willie Aird will hold the old Charlie Flanagan seat.
In Mayo, Alan Dillon will hold his own seat and Mark Duffy and Keira Keogh will secure the old Michael Ring seat between them.
There will be a Fine Gael seat in Cork North West (home of the Kanturk incident).
In Cork South Central, Fine Gael have been bumped down the pecking order by the performance of the Social Democrats Pádraig Rice, but Jerry Buttimer should hold Simon Coveney’s old seat.
Paul Kehoe’s old Wexford seat looks like it could be a loss. Cathal Byrne has a huge gap of more than 1,000 votes to make up to George Lawlor of Labour. Lawlor is not expected to transfer too strongly, and Byrne has a running mate in Bridín Murphy – but there was tension between the pair over the campaign.
In Galway East, Pete Roche is in the fight for Ciarán Cannon’s old seat, and has two running mates behind him to put the wind in his sails – although Independent Ireland’s Declan Geraghy is uncomfortably close, for now.
We have no counts yet in Clare or Carlow Kilkenny, but Joe Cooney is shaping strongly on tallies in the former. In Carlow-Kilkenny, three Fianna Fáil candidates are bunched at the top but Catherine Callaghan is in the fourth seat, based off the tallies, with 9.7 per cent of the vote. She will be helped, potentially, by two Fine Gael running mates who have a combined first preference of around 9,000 votes.
Undisputably, the highest stakes and highest profile race going. Gangland figure Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, who has been named by the Garda as the head of an organised crime group, is in the hunt for a seat with an 813 vote lead on Marie Sherlock. His first preference vote was way bigger than anyone expected, at over 3,000 votes, keeping him ahead of a pack that would otherwise expected to have reeled him in. Things were looking even rosier for him last night until the distribution of PBP’s Eoghan O’Ceannabhain’s votes.
These heavily favoured Social Democrat’s Gary Gannon, promoting him to second in the running order and putting him within a couple of hundred votes of taking a seat.
This matters because the only realistic challenger to Hutch is Labour Senator Marie Sherlock, who needs all the left and centre candidate votes to gravitate towards her to challenge Hutch – most crucially, the Green’s Neasa Hourigan, who will be eliminated next.
A series of unlikely things now need to happen for Sherlock to prevail: firstly, Gannon needs to be elected as soon as possible, or else he will soak up some of the Green transfers. Malachy Steenson, the far right candidate, has been eliminated and the next thing to happen is his votes are distributed. He is a polar opposite to Gannon, but there might be enough inner city votes to transfer to Gannon, who is geographically close to Steenson.
If Gannon is elected, then the path is clear for Hourigan to transfer heavily to Sherlock. If he’s not (and Steenson will definitely transfer heavily to Hutch) then the hill gets a bit steeper. If Gannon has to wait for Hourigan’s vote to be elected, some, but not all of it will make its way to Sherlock. After Hourigan is eliminated and the vote distributed, we will know exactly the gap that must be closed – but Sherlock has to start closing it, and fast, as the odds of her being elected by Mary Fitzpatrick are not great.
The Fianna Fáil Senator is more likely to elect Paschal Donohoe to the third seat, and votes – especially at the scale needed – will be scarce for Sherlock.
It is a very narrow path, but as we write on Sunday morning, it is a path nonetheless.
While Fine Gael had the most retirements among its TDs, they were not the only ones to bow out before this general election.
So will the various parties hold the seats in places where the incumbents are not contesting?
Here’s a quick round-up of how things are going.
Fianna Fáil is hoping to retain Seán Haughey’s seat in Dublin Bay North and is on course to return at least one TD, possibly two. Tom Brabazon is ahead of running mate Deirdre Heney. Both are potentially in the mix to be elected. It would be a major coup for the party if it got two TDs here.
Another Fianna Fáil retirement was Jackie Cahill in Tipperary. Both Ryan O’Meara and Michael Smith are in the running to take the third seat there on the basis of the final tally. It looks like it could be a hold for Fianna Fáil.
Outgoing Galway West TD Eamon Ó Cuív is the other Fianna Fáil retirement. At this point it is difficult to know how the contenders to hold his seat – Grainne Seoige and John Connolly – are faring.
The first count has been delayed and there were issues with the tally. It would be a surprise if there is not a Fianna Fáil seat in Galway West.
The two former co-leaders of the Social Democrats – Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall – are not contesting the election in Kildare North and Dublin North-West respectively.
Aidan Farrelly is thought to be in contention to retain the seat in Kildare North on the basis of tallies.
Rory Hearne is currently second in Dublin North-West and looking likely to be elected.
Former Labour leader Brendan Howlin has retired. His party colleague George Lawlor was in fourth place after the second count and was more than 2,000 votes ahead of the next contender. He looks highly likely to hold the seat for Labour.
A boundary re-draw of his Cork East constituency prompted Labour’s Seán Sherlock to leave politics.
There is no Labour candidate in that constituency but there is two in the five-seat Cork North Central – where a chunk of Cork East was moved to, including Sherlock’s hometown of Mallow.
Eoghan Kenny and John Maher were in seventh and tenth place respectively after the second count. It is not impossible that Labour could nab a seat here.
It has been a tale of the contrasting fortunes of two high-profile Independents in Wexford. Verona Murphy triumphed and was elected on the first count with 11,340 votes.
Mick Wallace meanwhile is facing elimination having secured 1,615 votes. It was a far cry from 2011 when the pink tee-shirt wearing former builder topped the poll and entered the Dáil. He was re-elected in 2016 before winning a seat in the European Parliament in 2019.
Wallace lost his seat in June’s European Election. He entered the general election race late saying he was putting his name forward because he had been one of the few people in the Dáil who knew anything about housing. His absence from local politics in Wexford over the last five years appears not to have done him any favours.
Murphy on the other hand, the former president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, began her political career in the 2019 by-election caused by Wallace’s departure for Europe in an unsuccessful run for Fine Gael.
She ran as an independent in 2020 and took a seat. Four and a half years later she has a team of local independent councillors and has been comfortably re-elected. As one independent empire in the south-east fades another continues to rise.
Former Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley said at the start of the months that he will have an “uphill battle” in his bid to be elected as an Independent. It is now looking like he will retain his seat, and comfortably enough at that.
Stanley had a massive falling out with Sinn Féin, quitting the party last month following an internal inquiry on the foot of a complaint against him.
He pressed ahead and ran in Laois as an “independent republican” against a Sinn Féin replacement candidate Maria McCormack. He was a good distance ahead of ahead of McCormack after the first count in Laois – with his 6,782 first preference voters to her 4,914. He is well-placed to go on to take the last seat in the three-seater.
There was a good deal of support for him on the streets of Portlaoise when The Irish Times went there recently to see how his resignation from Sinn Féin had gone down locally.
While some wanted more answers about the circumstances of his departure from Sinn Féin, many people who spoke on and off the record in the town praised his work locally and indicated they would be backing him. This sentiment seems to be playing out now with Stanley on the cusp of returning to the Dáil.
In Laois it looks like support for a well-liked local TD, for many voters at least, is stronger than any party loyalty. It would not be the first time voters have rallied around a local politician caught up in a national controversy and it will not be the last.
The Social Democrats were ahead of the other smaller parties in the exit poll – on 5.8 per cent – and are expected to do well in several constituencies this weekend. So how are they doing in the six places they won seats in 2020 and where could they pick up more?
First of all, party leader Holly Cairns – who gave birth to a baby girl on election day – looks safe in Cork South-West. Deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan is also nailed on for a seat and is set to top the poll in Dublin Bay North.
Jennifer Whitmore is also doing well in Wicklow and Gary Gannon is looking like taking the third seat in Dublin Central – expect them to be back in the Dáil.
Former party co-leader Catherine Murphy is retiring and not contesting the election. She sounded positive about the prospect of Cllr Aidan Farrelly retaining her seat in Kildare North during a broadcast interview earlier. He was second on just under 15 per cent at one stage in the tallying earlier and is certainly in contention for a seat.
Rory Hearne is seeking to retain the Dublin North-West seat being vacated by another former co-leader Róisín Shortall in what is a tight three-seat constituency. With 100 per cent of the boxes tallied there he was on 14 per cent along with outgoing Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe and Sinn Féin councillor Cathleen Carney Boud.
This one will be a scrap but the Soc Dems look on course to retain at least five of their current seats with the possibility of keeping the sixth.
And the possible gains? Sinead Gibney appears to be doing well in Dublin Rathdown on 9 per cent in the tallies – one point ahead of Green Party minister Catherine Martin whose seat is vulnerable. Liam Quaide, a Social Democrats councillor running in Cork East is still in the running for a seat, depending on transfers. Elsewhere in the rebel county Padraig Rice was doing well in Cork South Central and is among five candidates vying for one of the final two seats there.
“The other Eoin Ó Broin” – the Soc Dems fella not the Sinn Féiner running in the same constituency – is in a dogfight for the fifth seat in Dublin Mid-West. At one point near the end of the tallying he was on 6.1 per cent – ahead of incumbent People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny (5.6 per cent) and Francis Timmons of Labour (5.2 per cent) but slightly behind Independent Paul Gogarty (6.9 per cent).
Elisa O’Donovan is doing well in Limerick City despite her name further down the ballot paper than it should have been due to an error. She was one of a number of candidates on seven per cent in the final tally and fighting it out for the fourth and final seat along with Fine Gael’s Maria Byrne, Fianna Fáil’s Dee Ryan, and Conor Sheehan of Aontú.
O’Callaghan said at the party’s final press campaign press conference that the party was in the running in ten or more constituencies. He appears to have been correct in that assessment.
Every party has a key target list – but how are the big parties getting on in some constituencies where they wanted to add TDs in. Let’s take a look at Fine Gael at a few of Fine Gael’s strong targets.
One of the enduring features of Irish politics is the Independent TD – in almost all other countries, these folks would be in political parties. And in Ireland, many of them once were – now they are standalone brands, presenting a headache for their former party colleagues. Let’s take a look at a few of the races they’re involved in
The conventional wisdom is that people love voting their local minister back in – and while this is often true, they also love giving them a kicking from time to time. There are, by our count, seven ministers in a battle to survive.
We’ve already covered off Stephen Donnelly’s (Fianna Fáil) difficulties in Wicklow. That tally has completed and Donnelly has edged ahead of Edward Timmins (FG), so he’s looking a bit healthier – but he is far from safe.
We’ve also had our first ministerial concession, with the Green Party’s Joe O’Brien (Greens) admitting his Fingal East seat is gone. He was always in a battle, but with the Green tide this far out, he had no hope.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fáil) is not a name many people would have had as struggling before today, but in this four seater, she is still 5,300 votes short of a quota with the tally almost complete. Her party colleague Albert Dolan has strongly outpolled her, and she is behind Independent Seán Canney, Independent Ireland’s Declan Geraghty, Sinn Féin’s Louis O’Hara and Fine Gael’s Pete Roche.
Roderic O’Gorman (Greens) is potentially the only Green survivor. We wouldn’t have been saying that last night when the exit poll figures came through. He is crucially ahead of Labour’s John Walsh by just over 400 votes.
Dublin Rathdown, and its antecedent constituency of Dublin South, is no stranger to booting out a minister, as Shane Ross, Alex White and Alan Shatter can attest. Catherine Martin (Greens) is adrift of the leading pack with the tally complete in Dublin Rathdown, where Neale Richmond, Maeve O’Connell (both FG) and Shay Brennan (FF) are out in front. Martin is bunched with Sinéad Gibney (SD) and Michael Fleming (Ind) with fewer than 200 votes between them.
Ossian Smyth (Greens), as we wrote previously, has Hugo Mills right on his shoulder in Dún Laoghaire and is some distance from the seats, with Sinn Féin’s Shane O’Brien between him and the leading pack.
One of the big stories of 2020 was Sinn Féin’s surge. The strength and the weakness of the party’s strategy last time out was captured in their poll toppers – huge votes that left seats behind due to not running enough candidates. Let’s have a look at a few of these poll-toppers fortunes’ this time out.
A year ago, it looked like immigration was going to be a defining issue for this election – but it seemed to reach a high watermark just around the local elections and then recede in relevance for voters. Our exit poll found that just 6 per cent of voters said immigration was most important to them when heading to the polls. A slew of candidates are running primarily on the issue of migration – but how are they getting on?
One of the major questions heading into this election was how Fine Gael would defend a whopping 18 seats without the benefit of incumbency. Let’s take a whirl around a few and see how they’re getting on:
In Kerry, where Brendan Griffin stood down, there’s a third of the tally in. Fine Gael ran just one candidate – former Kerry footballer Billy O’Shea, and he is duking it out with Fianna Fáil’s second candidate Michael Cahill, on 10.8 per cent and 10.2 per cent.
In Donegal, the Fine Gael vote is down, as it seeks to hold on to Joe McHugh’s seat – and both its candidates are some way outside the seats during the tally, with Sinn Féin predictably leading the way and Fianna Fáil in the hunt for two seats. Fine Gael have a lot to do here to come into the reckoning.
In Cavan-Monaghan, David Maxwell looks likely to hold on to Heather Humphreys’ seat.
Holding two in Dublin-Rathdown is a key target for Fine Gael, where Maeve O’Connell is hoping to hold on to Josepha Madigan’s seat. With all boxes open, she has her nose in front of Fianna Fáil’s Shay Brennan. But with a lot of candidates bunched together on between 6 and 9 per cent, there could be some volatility below her which she will hope to avoid.
Emer Currie looks set to hold in Dublin West, Leo Varadkar’s old seat.
John McGahon, caught up in campaign trail controversy, is trailing in Louth where Simon Harris effectively removed his endorsement late in the race. But a lot of those boxes are from the Drogheda end of the constituency, not his heartland in Dundalk.
Cork East, where Mark Stanton is hoping to defend his father David’s seat, is tightly bunched at the moment with six candidates on between 10 and 12 per cent of first preferences with a little more than half the boxes tallied. Stanton is among them, on 12 per cent, with running mate Noel McCarthy on 11 per cent. We’ll check back in on the other constituencies in a while.
The battle for primacy between the Civil War parties is going to be a ground war – the path looks clear for a government based on a coalition between the two, but their candidates are fighting it out between themselves – and against others – in a way that could decide who holds the upper hand. Some races to watch:
In Fingal East, Fine Gael’s Alan Farrell was predicted to take a seat comfortably alongside Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien. While the Minister for Housing is sitting pretty, Farrell (14.4 per cent) is marginally behind Labour’s Duncan Smith (14.5 per cent) and Sinn Féin’s Anne Graves (14.6 per cent). Aontú, Independents4Change, and Green transfers will come into play soon, with Joan Hopkins of the Social Democrats still in touch.
Across the border in Fingal West, Fine Gael’s Grace Boland and Fianna Fáil’s Lorraine Clifford Lee are polling close to each other with all boxes open. But they trail Louise O’Reilly of Sinn Féin and Labour’s Robert O’Donoghue, who the party heavily tipped for a seat. If there’s only one government seat here, one of the pair of Boland and Clifford Lee look likely to miss out.
Fianna Fáil are looking to add a seat in Clare, where Timmy Dooley is out in front with 21 per cent with more than half the tally in, while Cathal Crowe is on 9 per cent. Fine Gael’s Joe Cooney (14.9 per cent) is ahead of party colleague Leonora Carey (8.4 per cent), with Fianna Fáil comfortably ahead of Fine Gael on first preferences as it stands.
In Galway West, Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne (10.6 per cent) is ahead of party colleague, the super junior minister Hildegarde Naughton (8.3 per cent) with a little more than half boxes tallied. John Connolly is comfortably outpolling celebrity candidate Gráinne Seoige who is currently outside the seats.
In Louth, with a third of boxes tallied, John McGahon (who was ensnared in a campaign controversy over a fight he was involved in outside a pub several years ago) is trailing both his own party colleague Paula Butterly and both Fianna Fáil candidates Erin McGreehan and Alison Comyn. Early boxes tallied seemed to be from Drogheda though, with McGahon’s base in Dundalk.
On the eve of the election, the Greens mood was growing increasingly despondent. There was a glimmer of hope for them in the exit poll on Friday night, having them on 4 per cent nationally. But everywhere you looked on Saturday morning, tallies were not favourable for the party, including in its heartlands.
In Dublin West, with almost all boxes open, Roderic O’Gorman (6.5 per cent) had his nose in front of John Walsh of the Labour Party (5.6 per cent). But with Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers (20.9 per cent) and Sinn Féin’s Paul Donnelly (17.1 per cent) looking strong, and Fine Gael’s Emer Currie odds on to hold Leo Varadkar’s old seat (15.2 per cent). But Ruth Coppinger was going well on 8.6 per cent, making her early favourite to take the fourth seat, leaving O’Gorman scrapping for the last.
In Dún Laoghaire, Ossian Smyth is a bellwether for the entire party’s fortunes – probably even more so than O’Gorman. He will be looking very nervously at the Social Democrats’s Hugo Mills, tallying just 105 votes behind the Green in a strong performance.
In Dublin South Central, where the party was hopeful of holding on to Patrick Costello’s seat, he is holding just 6 per cent of the vote in the tally, making it hard to see him coming home. Ditto Neasa Hourigan across the river in Dublin Central. Steven Matthews is struggling in Wicklow, with Marc Ó Cathasaigh on 3 per cent in Waterford.
Hazel Chu is also facing a big battle to keep Eamon Ryan’s seat in Dublin Bay South where he topped the poll in 2020.
It looks like a dark day for the Greens.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin went down the N11 to Wicklow on the last day of campaigning, in a bid to shore up support for Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly in what was always going to be an absolute bear pit, with five TDs seeking four seats in a shrunken constituency.
Donnelly is in one hell of a scrap. With 53 per cent of boxes open, he had 6.4 per cent of the vote. This has him just behind the second Fine Gael candidate, Edward Timmins on 6.6 per cent. The Green Party’s Steven Matthews looked doomed on just under 4 per cent, trailing the Fine Gael gene-pool Independent Shay Cullen (4.8 per cent).
If we assume (and on these numbers it looks likely enough) that Taoiseach Simon Harris, Sinn Féin’s John Brady and Social Democrats’s Jennifer Whitmore are heading back to the Dáil (30.1 per cent, 13.8 per cent, 13.7 per cent), then Donnelly will have to get ahead of Timmins and hope for a favour from Harris’s surplus, and that Cullen’s presumed elimination doesn’t favour Timmins too heavily. Independent Joe Behan, a former Fianna Fáil TD, was on 5.6 per cent, so perhaps some Fianna Fáil-leaning votes might come home to Donnelly – but remember, many view him as Fianna Fáil in name only.