Carlow-Kilkenny is broadly unchanged from the 2020 election in terms of geography, save for the loss of about 6,000 voters to the new constituency (my own as it happens) of Tipperary North. The remaining voters will elect, as usual, five TDs.
Where there has been change – and significant change – is in the personnel. Both Fine Gael and Sinn Fein are fielding new candidates here, thanks to the retirement of John Paul Phelan and the elevation to the European Parliament of Sinn Fein’s Kathleen Funchion.
Three of the five outgoing TDs will, however, contest the election. Those are the Fianna Fáil duo of Jennifer Murnane-O’Connor and John McGuinness, as well as the Green Party’s Malcolm Noonan.
In terms of party support, Carlow-Kilkenny should be relatively easy to call for four of the five seats. FF got 36% of the vote here in 2020 – one of their best results in the country – and barring an unlikely collapse for the party, it should be relatively certain of bringing two seats home again on this occasion. Fine Gael got a disappointing 22% last time, and even with no improvement are guaranteed at least one. Meanwhile Sinn Fein’s 24% in 2020 could fall by almost half and still leave the party favoured to hold its one seat here. The party has gone for a two-candidate strategy this time, which is a little risky. But SF voters tend to transfer strongly between each other so it would be a surprise if one of them was not elected.
That leaves the Green’s Malcolm Noonan. In 2020 he polled 4,900 votes on the first count and was less than half of the way to a quota. He got elected based on very strong transfers as left wing candidates were eliminated from the count and overtook Fianna Fáil’s Bobby Alyward in the final three counts despite Aylward having started almost 3,000 votes ahead of him on the first count.
That, it goes without saying, will be a very hard feat to repeat. If there was a Green Party loss anywhere in the country that you were forced at gunpoint to put your house on, this would be the safest bet, or one of them.
On current polling, either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil are the ones most likely to gain at the Green’s expense. Both parties are running three candidates, with newcomer Peter Cleere joining the two sitting TDs on the FF ticket, and Fine Gael running two Kilkenny-based Councillors – David Fitzgerald and Michael Doyle – and Carlow-based farmer and ex-defence forces member Catherine Callaghan.
Now here’s where we get to the interesting part, because there’s a fascinating Independent candidate running in Carlow-Kilkenny this year: Eugene McGuinness, brother of sitting FF TD John.
For what it’s worth, this unusual sibling rivalry doesn’t seem particularly personal. Eugene told the Independent last month that “”I simply don’t agree with Fianna Fáil politics. I was brought up in a Fianna Fáil family but I was always very much independent,”
“John’s politics are his own. I have little interest in Fianna Fáil politics, I’m fiercely Independent and that’s the way I’m going to run.
“His politics are very different to mine. He obviously has a large vote in Kilkenny, but I would be going after a different type of vote, not John McGuinness’ votes.”
For whatever it’s worth, the Independent McGuinness seems to be a much longer-shot than his FF brother, having secured a seat in the local elections with a respectable but not earth-shattering 1,136 votes. He will need to do a lot better than that to challenge for a seat on this occasion.
The other factor here is that Carlow-Kilkenny just really doesn’t like electing independents, who collectively have never polled more than the low single digits in elections since the turn of the millennium. It would be a turnup for the books were this to suddenly change in 2024.
Nevertheless, Fianna Fáil would presumably prefer if there wasn’t another McGuinness on the ballot taking votes from their “gene pool”.
Of the other parties, few can have any confidence of a breakthrough here. Labour, the Soc Dems, and PBP will all be on the ballot – and though PBP were a minor factor here last time and crucial to electing the Greens, it seems unlikely that any of those parties have seen a sufficient surge in support to suddenly be challenging.
All in all, barring some massive and at this point unforeseen change to voting patterns, this constituency looks like sticking largely to type. The only question is whether the FG vote has increased enough to take a second seat. I think this is one the party will be heavily targeting. Going on the polling trends as they are, I make them slight favourites to unseat Noonan.
Prediction: 2FF, 2FG, 1SF
Overall result: FG GAIN from Green