“THE TRADITIONAL FIANNA Fáil house or Fine Gael house or Sinn Féin house – I don’t think it really stands up anymore.”

That’s what one Donegal man says about his constituency ahead of the general election.

If local election results are anything to go by, the lineup of TDs in the sprawling constituency may be in line for a shake-up. A recent poll also showed that Fine Gael may lose its Donegal seat.

As homes continue to crumble and young people continue to emigrate, the need for sustained attention on Donegal is evident. 

With the emergence of far-right characters and several new parties, opposition candidates are trying to appeal to the everyman, positioning the government as a coalition of parties who just don’t get it.

The newly-established 100% Redress Party did surprisingly well in the local elections, earning four council seats on their first outing (one more than Fine Gael). Now they’re running a candidate for the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin each got 10 seats each, while nine of the 37 seats were won by Independent candidates.

So what can we expect in the election? 

The candidates

There are five seats up for grabs, which are currently occupied by Pearse Doherty (SF), Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (SF), Charlie McConalogue (FF), Joe McHugh (FG), and Thomas Pringle (IND).

McHugh became a TD in 2007 and has been re-elected in every general election since, but he will not contest a seat this year, meaning there’s an opening in Donegal. Nikki Bradley and John McNulty are Fine Gael’s candidates.

Sinn Féin has long had strong representation in the county, with Doherty and Mac Lochlainn garnering nearly 45% of first preference votes in 2020. This election, the party has added another man to the ticket – Noel Jordan.  In 2016, the last time Sinn Féin ran three candidates, it split the vote, and they ended up losing a representative.

Fianna Fáiler McConalogue is the current Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine – a brief that is of particular importance for Donegal. He’ll run again alongside Claudia Kennedy and Pat “The Cope” Gallagher.

Gallagher – who first gained election to the Dáil in 1981 – failed to win a seat last time around. If successful, he’ll become one of the oldest serving TDs in the history of the state, at age 76.

A Green Party candidate has never been elected in Donegal. Nuala Carr will vie for a seat this time. She’s just completed a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast and is working at Atlantic Technological University (ATU) on a project related to offshore wind energy.

The other party-alligned candidates are Carol Gallagher (People Before Profit), Mary T Sweeney (Aontú) and Donna Murray (Independent Ireland). Also running on behalf of far-right anti-immigration parties the Irish Freedom Party and the Irish People are, respectively, Eamon McGee and Kim McMenamin.

Charles Ward will run for the 100% Redress Party, which focuses on the mica crisis.

There is no Social Democrats candidate running.

Sitting TD Pringle is a mainstay of the area and by far the most popular Independent in recent elections. The other Independent candidates are Niall McConnell, Arthur Desmond McGuinness, Gerry McKeever and Frank O’Donnell.

McConnell is a far-right candidate who has organised and attended a number of anti-immigration protests. He is the founder Siol na hÉireann, which is a registered company described as a “Christian nationalist movement”.

McKeever is a barber by profession and his priorities are safer communities, affordable housing and securing investments for infrastructure.

O’Donnell recently resigned from Fine Gael to run as an Independent candidate. He’s involved in community organisations such as the Letterkenny Residents Association and the Letterkenny Heritage Group.

The mica issue

It’s estimated that over 1,000 homes in Donegal have been affected by muscovite mica.

The concrete blocks have been crumbling and families have been forced to move in with relatives or rent a second home, all while paying a mortgage on a house that is falling down. 

A government scheme aims to compensate homeowners, but activists say it’s not nearly enough. The 100% Redress Party seeks to put the issue at the fore once again.

It’s not unheard of for a single-issue first-time candidate to win a seat in Donegal.

In 1997, Thomas Gildea from Glenties ran primarily on the promise that he’d legalise TV deflector systems - an alternative method of receiving cable television that was an important issue in rural Ireland at the time. On this platform, he stole a seat from established politician Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher.

In the local elections earlier this year, Charles Ward ran in the Lifford/Stranorlar district, but became the only 100% Redress Party candidate that didn’t get a council seat. Now he’s shifted his gaze to the Dáil.

Despite the party’s platform, Ward says he is not a single-issue candidate.

“I work in healthcare … I can see what’s going on in Letterkenny hospital where we are currently struggling with an overflow of patients and our staff are under severe pressure.”

He says the response from locals at the doors has been largely positive.

They see us as the only Donegal born and bred party that can take the fight for the defective concrete to the floors of the Dáil.

The newborn party hasn’t been without its teething issues.

Paddy Diver was a key figure in rallying support for the cause and bringing swathes of people to protest at the Dáil.

He told The Journal that he’ll support any party that implements a better compensation scheme, but that local Sinn Féin TDs Doherty and Mac Lochlainn have done their best while in opposition.

“[Mac Lochlainn] worked tirelessly so I’m confident voters will not forget all he’s done come election day.”

That’s why Diver is endorsing him and Doherty instead of the 100% Redress candidate.

It’s true that other parties and representatives have spoken out on the mica crisis. Pearse Doherty and Thomas Pringle have continuously taken the government to task on their failure to hold anyone accountable for the disaster, and have highlighted shortcomings with the compensation scheme.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said, if re-elected, his party will carry out a “full and comprehensive review” of the scheme, but Diver says Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had “two chances” already.

Changing tides

At least 36 pubs have closed in Donegal in the last five years and more expected.

There have also been a number of post office closures and now the Bundoran sorting centre is to become part of a larger centre in Sligo town, taking more jobs out of Donegal. 

Harry Walsh, a former journalist based in Donegal, says this, combined with a steady stream of emigration, has created “ghost towns”.

The community spirit has been sucked out of these smaller places.

“We’re being directed towards the larger towns and cities, which seems to be government policy, to get us out of our small villages and towns,” he said.

According to Walsh, more “joined-up” thinking is needed on housing, which should include allowing people to build on family land.

Years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael passing the baton over and back has made for a frustrated electorate, and Walsh says this may mean the big parties can’t bank on seats that were once sure-things.

As previously mentioned, according to a recent TG4/Ipsos B&A poll Fine Gael may struggle to retain their seat.

TG4 TG4

TG4 TG4

“Traditionally, many houses were in the camp of ‘my parents voted a certain way’, as did their parents before them. The younger population doesn’t adhere to that anymore,” said Walsh.

“The traditional Fianna Fáil house or Fine Gael house or Sinn Féin house – I don’t think it really stands up anymore. I think it’s more about issues.”

As of May, Donegal was the county with the second highest amount of asylum seekers, accounting for 1.2% of the population.

Anti-migrant sentiment is what several candidates have hung their hats on.

Some of them have been getting a sigificant amount of engagement on social media. However, as we saw with the local and European elections, this doesn’t always translate to votes.

Only five of over 100 far-right candidates – as categorised by The Journal – won seats on county councils.