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Six of the best for Fine Gael
09.06.09
Three seats on Town and
County Council for FG
FINE GAEL supporters across Inishowen are
celebrating this week after the party took three
seats in the Inishowen Electoral Area and three
seats on Buncrana Town Council in an election that
was a real triumph for the party.
In contrast Fianna Fail supporters will be licking
their wounds and wondering how they could have fared
better after they lost two seats on the county
council, one of those in dramatic fashion in the
early hours of Monday morning to Labour Party
candidate Martin Farren.
For a long time it seemed certain that Fine Gael and
Fianna Fail would take three seats each with
poll-topper Padraig MacLochlainn of Sinn Fein taking
the other, but Martin Farren upset the applecart at
the end taking a seat by a narrow margin from Paul
Canning. |
There was at least some
good news for Fianna Fail with the showing of
Charlie McConalogue in north Inishowen and having
taken 1,749 first preference votes in his first ever
election race he was always a certainty to be among
the seven elected candidates.
However while there was tense drama at the end in a
battle that eventually brought Martin Farren home,
the real story of the weekend was the showing of
Fine Gael.
They had also increased their seats on Buncrana Town
Council by |
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one and had a poll
topping performance from Lee Tedstone.
Michelle Bradley ‘Wadge’ was also elected alongside
Peter the Egg McLaughlin and the only real blemish
coming in the loss of Paul Bradley’s existing
council seat.
However with two new candidates elected to the Town
Council, they continued the trend on Sunday with
Black Mickey Doherty and John Ryan elected alongside
veteran Bernard McGuiness as the Fine Gael tally
jumped from one seat to three.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein who had hoped to make
significant gains in Inishowen in the end had to be
content with the status quo of two seats on Buncrana
Town Council and one on Donegal County Council.
And while the county council seat was always secure
with Padraig MacLochlainn elected on the first
count, they were made to sweat in the Town Council
race before Daren Lalor was eventually re-elected.
Fianna Fail meanwhile secured two seats on Buncrana
Town Council with James Gill winning a seat on his
first time out alongside Joe Doherty.
Independent candidate Nicholas Crossan who polled
strongly in the county council race, was elected on
the first count while independent Mickey Grant was
also elected to the town council.
(Inishowen Independent) |
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