PROFILE: Tipperary will welcome at least two new TDs after General Election 2024

With a five-seater Tipperary constituency re-drawn into two three-seaters in Tipperary North and Tipperary South you would expect at least one guaranteed fresh face from the Premier County in the next Dáil - but for the 2024 General Election there will be at least two new TDs elected.

Tipperary North and Tipperary South were reinstated as constituencies in 2023 by An Coimisiún Toghcháin. And both have already delivered a fair bit of drama ahead of polling day on November 29.

Firstly, we will take a look at the lie of the land in Tipperary North and what’s been going on there...

READ MORE: All eyes on Tipperary South to see if Fine Gael can claim seat for first time since 2011  

Fianna Fáil stalwart and incumbent Jackie Cahill announced just weeks ago that he would not be contesting the General Election due to health concerns.

A huge blow for the party in the newly-formed Tipperary North constituency - where Jackie Cahill would have been running. Cllr Michael Smith (Roscrea-Templemore) and Cllr Ryan O’Meara (Nenagh) both put their names forward for selection.

For more Tipperary General Election news and updates, click the image below to go to the General Election section on tipperarylive.ie

Smith is a son of the long-time Fianna Fáil TD and Minister of the same name and Cllr O’Meara was Cahill’s parliamentary assistant.

The party opted not to go with a contest for who ran, but put both candidates on the ticket.

READ MORE: Revealed: The candidates we know are running in the General Election in Tipperary North!

A smart move, considering how close we are to polling day. Three of the former Tipperary TDs are in Tipperary North in Jackie Cahill (Fianna Fáil), Michael Lowry (Independent) and Alan Kelly (Labour).

So, with Cahill gone, this is where we will see our first new TD elected.

The boundary changes are likely to have made Independent TD Michael Lowry nervous and he has been pumping out the campaign videos on social media.

In one news anchor type post on Facebook, he said himself that “for me personally, this is going to be the most difficult election I have ever contested. Because of changes to the constituency boundaries, I’m losing over 5,000 number one votes before I start”.

READ MORE: Revealed: The candidates we know are running in the General Election in Tipperary North!

Lowry has served as a TD since 1987, having previously been a member of Fine Gael until late 1996. 

Lowry (who got 14,802 first-preference votes in 2020 - up from 13,000 in 2016) remains an absolute certainty to retain his seat and top the poll for the seventh election in a row - even with the unfavourable re-draw of the boundaries.

Unlike Lowry, Labour’s Alan Kelly (first elected in 2011 to the Dáil and a former Minister and Labour Party leader) will likely benefit from the re-draw with over 4,600 voters in the Newport and Birdhill areas returning from the Limerick City constituency.

As part of that re-draw over 6,400 voters that live in the north western part of Kilkenny county have been added to Tipperary North and it remains to be seen how their vote will go.

Will they feel disenfranchised and stay at home?

A Kilkenny councillor putting the shoulder to the wheel here like Fianna Fáil’s Michael McCarthy in Freshford, could be a huge boost for Smith and O’Meara in the race for a seat.

It’s worth noting Lowry will take a lot of the Fine Gael vote which could impact on the party’s candidate and local councillor Dr Phyll Bugler.

It looks unlikely that Fine Gael will nab a seat here but Fianna Fáil can certainly hold on to one.

Local Elections poll-topper in the Thurles Local Electoral Area, Jim Ryan, plans to run in Tipperary North. He has strong support in Thurles and blew past Michael Lowry’s son, Cllr Micheál Lowry, to take top spot in the Thurles LEA in June.

Cllr Ryan, who was a member of Fianna Fáil until 2004, could get a lot of Jackie Cahill’s vote and take some of Lowry’s in Thurles too.

He is one to watch...

Sinn Féin’s Martin Browne is running in Tipperary South and in the newly-formed Tipperary North they are going with Local Elections candidate Dan Harty from Holycross.

Harty fell well short of the quota in June and faces an uphill battle here in Tipperary North amongst some big heavy-hitters.

The Green Party is running Iva Pocock with Diana O’Dwyer standing for People Before Profit-Solidarity and Francis O’Toole the Aontú candidate.

Peter Madden is standing as an Independent.

Many of the campaigns have been launched with All-Star celebrities, athletes and local businessmen and women in attendance.

It seems Tipperary’s candidates have taken a leaf out of the US Presidential Election template with celebrity endorsements, but it didn’t work out too well for Kamala Harris...

The press releases are flying in on funding allocations for housing adaptation grants and massive sports capital grants allocations and then there are the statements criticising the closure of St Michael’s acute psychiatric unit and the closure of St Brigid’s Hospital, Carrick-on-Suir, and ambitious plans to tackle the housing crisis. We are well and truly in General Election mode now...

Likely Outcome: Lowry takes the first seat with the second and third going to Kelly and Smith but the order they are elected to those seats is anyone’s guess.

Possible Shock: Tipp loves Independent candidates. Jim Ryan could spring a surprise here and claim the third seat at the expense of either Kelly or Smith. Anything is possible in politics.