Elections 2024: 18 candidates to chase seven seats across City West LEA
Village to be key battleground
EIGHTEEN candidates will slug it out for seven seats in City West, an electoral area which stretches from the walls of Limerick to the green fields of Clarina and Patrickswell.
And for a second straight election, it looks like Patrickswell will be a key battleground, with no fewer than four candidates based in the village.
Outgoing councillors Dan McSweeney (Fine Gael) and Fergus Kilcoyne, elected as an Independent, but now with Fianna Fail, will be hoping to retain their seats.
They are joined in Patrickswell by Esther Aherne, a health and safety officer, who herself has been on the move.
Originally on the ticket as a Fianna Fail candidate, she has switched to Richard O’Donoghue’s new Independent Ireland party.
Another ex-Fianna Fail councillor Sean Lynch, a former detective garda and the father of All-Star hurler Cian Lynch, is running as an Independent.
Elsewhere in the constituency - which covers the central business area of the city - mayoral election candidate Daniel Butler will be hoping for a repeat of 2019 - or better - when he came within a handful of votes of topping the poll in his area.
The man who pipped him at the post, Cllr James Collins of Fianna Fail is not contesting this election.
There’s a number of city centre-based candidates, including Bangladeshi Azad Talukder of Fianna Fail who, in 2019, made history becoming the first Muslim council member in Limerick.
Shahin Reza, a fellow Bangladeshi national, is running as an Independent.
Fine Gael are also running Limerick Chamber skillnet manager Michael MacCurtain, a first-time candidate from Ballinacurra.
Returning for a third council election is Sinn Fein’s Malachy McCreesh, of Gouldavoher, who lost his seat in 2019. He will be joined on the Sinn Fein ticket by Frances Lonergan of Dooradoyle.
Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan will bid to hold onto the party’s only seat in the city.
Labour’s standard-bearer in City West Joe Leddin will be hoping to be elected a sixth straight time, having first been returned to the old City Council in 1999.
Limerick City West candidates
Seats: 7 Candidates: 18
Esther Aherne - Independent Ireland
Daniel Butler - Fine Gael
Maria Donoghue - Non-party
Fergus Kilcoyne - Fianna Fáil
Joe Leddin - Labour Party
Frances Lonergan - Sinn Féin
Seán Lynch - Non-party
Michael MacCurtain - Fine Gael
Khalid Mahmood - Non-party
Cathal McCarthy - Non-party
Malachy McCreesh - Sinn Féin
Dan McSweeney - Fine Gael
Alec Morrissey - Non-party
Elisa O’Donovan - Social Democrats
Michael Rafferty - No party listed
Shahin Reza - No party listed
Peter Spencer - Green Party / Comhaontas Glas
Abul Kalam Azad Talukder - Fianna Fáil