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

Outgoing TDs Mattie McGrath (Independent) and Martin Browne (Sinn Féin) are running in the Tipperary South constituency but make no mistake, this three-seater is a battleground, writes Darren Hassett.

Fine Gael will be determined to claim one of the three seats on offer and neither incumbents’ seats are secure ahead of November 29.

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Independent newcomer, John O’Heney, is likely to come close if he campaigns the same way he did for the Local Elections in June where he topped the poll with over 2,500 first-preference votes in the Cashel-Tipperary Local Electoral Area on his first time out.

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He is a well-liked and a clearly popular Independent who could put Newcastle’s Mattie McGrath under pressure.

This is a constituency fraught with potential upsets.

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Labour performed well in the Local Elections but it remains to be seen what impact the newly-elected Killenaule councillor, Michael “Chicken” Brennan can have on the big stage of a General Election.

It is unlikely he will feature in the race for the three seats but his transfers could help Seamus Healy of Workers and Unemployed Action - who lost his seat in 2020 - with votes from farther up the constituency.

The real talk of the General Election 2024 in Tipperary South is Fine Gael’s prospects of claiming a seat in the county for the first time since Noel Coonan and Tom Hayes in 2011.

Clonmel LEA poll-topper, Fine Gael’s Michael Murphy could be the party’s saviour after a strong Local Elections with over 2,700 first preference votes - the highest of any candidate elected in the Premier County.

It would be a surprise if Murphy doesn’t secure a seat for Simon Harris’ party.

It won’t be his first time running in a General Election having run in 2011 in the then Tipperary South alongside Tom Hayes, but this time around, he is expected to take an all-important seat for Fine Gael.

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Both Tipperary constituencies will be good bellwether areas to determine what way the public vote is going.

Sinn Féin’s Martin Browne got just over 10,000 votes on Count 1 in 2020 and elected to the second seat in the then five-seater Tipperary constituency after Michael Lowry who took in 14,802 first-preference votes.

Browne had just months before lost his council seat in 2020. So much depends on the General Election campaign for Sinn Féin and they are in a fight for every vote.

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald was in Tipperary over the weekend in Ardfinnan and Clonmel, but local media were not aware of her visit, so we have limited coverage of her trip to Tipp this week.

Martin Browne benefitted from the Mary Lou surge in 2020 and that is unlikely to happen again so his seat is perhaps more vulnerable than Mattie McGrath’s who got over 9,300 first-preference votes - many of them Fianna Fáil votes - in 2020 and was elected to the third seat on the sixth count.

Many national political commentators have McGrath as the favourite in Tipperary South but McGrath has always had somewhat more of a national profile than a local one because of his Dáil rhetoric.

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As one political analyst wrote “the former Fianna Fáil TD who has been an Independent – re-elected every time – since the financial crash a decade and a half ago. He is favourite to return here”.

But, perhaps his Fianna Fáil vote could be swayed after McGrath’s involvement in anti-immigration protests in Tipperary over the past few months.

Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Imelda Goldsboro ran a stellar Local Elections campaign but has failed to make an impression in previous General Elections.

It will be worth keeping an eye on her first-preference vote to see if people have backed the Government party candidates.

Many believe that the final seat is likely to come down to a battle between Goldsboro and Browne.

If McGrath secures his seat, perhaps his legacy Fianna Fáil votes could swing towards a resurgent Goldsboro and see her nab the third seat ahead of the Sinn Féin candidate. But what of Healy and O’Heney?

This constituency could go several ways.