Fine Gael were the big winners in June’s local elections on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council going from 13 seats to 16 but it’s hardly fun to talk about why Fine Gael did well on the Southside, is it?
We could talk about how they got three councillors elected in Blackrock but that’s hardly news.
We could spend just as much time talking about why Coldplay and Oasis sell out Croke Park; people have their interests set in stone and will not budge from it.
No, the real fun with analysing transfers is when you go deep into the weeds in an election race like the one Dundrum had in June.
Seven-seaters, by their very nature, produce the most esoteric results and let candidates from outside the traditional political norm to flourish.
Case in point: two of the seven seats in Dundrum were won by independent candidates.
Independent Sean McLoughlin and Fine Gael’s Jim O’Leary were the big winners in Dundrum, with both being elected on the first count.
With both candidates being elected on the first count this meant that their surpluses were instantly distributed.
McLoughlin’s 521 surpluses shaped the race early doors; fellow independent Anne Colgan picked up 89, Fianna Fáil’s Shay Brennan picked up 75 extra votes and Labour’s Peter O’Brien picked up 63.
O’Leary’s surplus distribution was less dramatic with 148 being dispersed, but it gave an instant leg-up to his fellow Fine Gael colleagues Anna Grainger (who was also elected) and Eoin O’Driscoll.
Shay Brennan was assured of a seat by virtue of his 11.2% of first preferences and sure as shooting was elected at the end of the third count thanks to picking up transfers from running mate Fiona Murray.
The real fun and games began when micro party The Irish People saw their candidate Conor Rafferty eliminated round four with 233 preferences.
84 of those went to Aontú’s Liam Coughlan, who notably outpolled Sinn Féin’s two candidates in the constituency.
55 of Rafferty’s votes were non-transfers which meant that the 84 votes for Coughlan ended up going a fairly long way.
As we mentioned in our rundown of Dublin South Central, Aontú is going to annoy Sinn Féin in the general election.
The party now has a dilemma; do they try to appeal to the socially progressive voter that went for the Soc Dems, Labour and PBP in June or risk annoying that lucrative voting bloc in a bid to win back Aontú voters?
Coughlan outpolled Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats in Dundrum which gives Coughlan something to work with ahead of the general election.
Sinn Féin topped the poll in Dundrum in 2014 with Sorcha Nic Cormaic winning a seat for the party but it all went Pete Tong in 2019 when Nic Cormaic slid from topping the poll with 8.6% to finishing last in 2019 with 2%.
Combined, Sinn Féin’s two candidates attained 6.28% between them which was a slight improvement but far off what was needed to win a seat.
It is worth noting that in 2019 Eirígí scored 4.2% of first preferences in the seat but didn’t run in 2024 which indicated where the super-mega-hyper-extreme left stayed at home this year as turnout in Dundrum dropped from 50.3% to 46.6%.
Rachel Gerrard was the more successful of Sinn Féin’s duo in Dundrum, and her 845 transfers ended up shaking up the race.
265 of them were non-transfers, but 176 of them went towards the Social Democrats’ candidate Síle Ní Dhubhgaill, 109 of them went towards Coughlan and 101 went towards O’Brien.
You will not be shocked to hear that Fine Gael’s two candidates received 47 preferences from Sinn Féin.
While the Greens suffered an electoral wipeout on South Dublin County Council, their only saving grace as far as Dublin was concerned was holding onto all six of their seats on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council.
In this case, the Green vote slid from 19.6% in 2019 to 8.3% this year but that is more than enough to get someone elected in a seven-seater.
In all likelihood, Robert Jones would have been fine without transfers but they certainly gave him a boost.
He reached the quota after receiving 281 transfers from Ní Dhubhgaill 161 from O’Brien and 110 from Fine Gael’s Eoin O’Driscoll.
Sinn Féin were out of the picture by this stage, but it transpired that independent candidate Anne Colgan was among the most transfer-friendly candidates left on the ballot.
She received 156 transfers from Ní Dhubhgaill, and 57 apiece from both O’Brien and Jones.
Fine Gael’s 16 seat haul on the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council was confirmation that the party, which was written off after March’s referendum defeats, received an unlikely shot in the arm from Simon Harris becoming Taoiseach.
Fine Gael’s share of the vote in Dundrum in 2019, when they ran three candidates, stood at a healthy 21.9% and that figure jumped up to 27.1% in June.
An average of 9% per candidate is exceptional vote management from Fine Gael, but it wasn’t enough to win three seats in Dundrum.
O’Driscoll was Fine Gael’s unsuccessful candidate, and received 5.4% of first preferences.
He did prove relatively transfer-friendly (he received 44 surpluses from O’Leary’s first round victory, the exact same as Anna Grainger), the share of first preferences was simply too low to win a seat.
As mentioned, Dundrum is part of Dublin Rathdown at a Dáil level; the independent streak (as well as a strong Fine Gael performance) could be a hint of what is to come.
The decline of the Green vote, which was still enough to get them elected, could prove problematic in a general election context.
The Social Democrats scored 6% in Dundrum at their first time of asking in Dundrum, and Labour saw their share of the vote increase by nearly 3%.
The Green vote dipping by 11% while other like-minded social progressive parties see increases in vote share could make the general election very interesting indeed.