SINN FÉIN FRONTBENCHER David Cullinane hailed an “absolutely phenomenal” first for the party after he brought a running mate over the line in Waterford.

He told The Journal that the party has seen growth in election after election – from 6% when he first stood 22 years ago to guaranteeing at least one third of the vote now – thanks to “hard work on the ground, grinding it out every day and every week and articulating the needs of the people” in the constituency.

He said there was a “bittersweet” feeling to his success last time in 2020 when he got 38% of the vote, as there was no other party candidate to pass on the health spokesperson’s almost entire extra quota of votes to get another TD elected.

Cullinane pointed to a strong branch containing what he dubbed “local leaders” in the city and county, which he and others believe bore fruit during an awkward local election for Sinn Féin last June.

While they struggled in many parts of the country, they managed to overtake Fianna Fáil in terms of councillors on the local authority. It included big wins in rural areas, making them the joint largest party on the council with Fine Gael.

For this past week’s general election, the party’s vote was still down about 5% on 2020. However, it had plenty enough to see Cullinane top the poll, and then for McGuinness to get over the line against outgoing TD Matt Shanahan.

The Independent saw his campaign end in controversy when he had to apologise for broadcasting a visual display on the side of University Hospital Waterford, including on a building housing a palliative care ward. He first defended the display as “fair political comment” before backing down.

A big factor in the win was McGuinness having the west of the county to himself as all other parties ran candidates cloistered in around the city and the mid-county.

The 37-year-old was assisted by disciplined party transfer rates from Cullinane – around 75% of the senior TD’s surplus – and further strong transfers from the Social Democrats, possibly influenced by a last-minute ‘vote left, transfer left’ strategy.

Shanahan’s own camp noted that they were hoping for more transfers from the SocDems’ Mary Roche due to her and the Independent being based close to each other in the city, but their hearts dropped as they could see ballot after ballot containing second, third and fourth preferences for McGuinness – and none for Shanahan.

Some of the senior people in the Shanahan camp told @thejournal_ie earlier that they felt Mary Roche’s transfers were showing a ‘vote left, transfer left’ strategy, with McGuinness picking up second and third preferences from SocDems but leaving Shanahan with none https://t.co/v5YUcWOa72

— Eoghan Dalton (@EoghanDalton) December 1, 2024

It’s not clear if the display had much effect, but some in the count centre this weekend thought it may have swayed preferences of undecided voters who were entering the ballot box in the hours after the controversy occurred.

Nationwide view

The party entered Friday’s vote with a sense that they could make a number of unexpected gains across the country thanks to a late shift in polls. So how did the party actually get on? It’s a mixed picture.

Party strategists told The Journal early last week that they believed a late shift in the polls meant they could eye extra seats in Waterford, parts of Dublin and Cork with greater confidence.

Sinn Féin also managed to get two TDs over the line in Dublin South Central thanks to incumbent Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Liberties-based councillor Máire Devine.

Ó Snodaigh had more than two quotas last time around in 2020 so the party added Devine and Daithí Doolan to the ticket this time.

In Dublin Mid-West, the party expected to retain the two seats it secured in 2020 (after Ward won a by-election in 2020). Housing spokesperson Eoin O Bróin and mental health spokesperson Mark Ward were almost certainly also helped by the constituency becoming a five-seater.

Problems in Cork city

However, the party came unstuck in Cork North Central. Sinn Féin had added its press officer and local councillor Joe Lynch to the ticket alongside its TD Thomas Gould who had been elected with over 3,000 votes more than needed four years ago.

On this occasion, the party’s overall share fell from 26% to around 17%. It meant only Gould could get elected and Lynch barely featured in the final shakes, amid strong competition from People Before Profit, Independent Ireland and Labour.

A similar story could be found on the other side of the River Lee where the party witnessed some of its vote hocked off since 2020.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire had topped the poll for Cork South Central then with 24% of the vote, well clear of Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, but that feat was not repeated this weekend.

Instead the party’s vote plunged to around 15% which was shared with Ó Laoghaire’s unsuccessful running mate Michelle Cowhey Shahid. The party was also possibly caught off guard by the Social Democrats’ Pádraig Rice getting a seat.

Ó Laoghaire still had enough to get a seat but their experiences in Cork may make them wary in future elections.

Border region and Ulster

In Louth, Ruairí Ó Murchú has been elected and his running mate Joanna Byrne also looks set to take a seat previously held by Imelda Munster. The party ran a third candidate Antóin Watters, but his whose vote looked set to help Byrne over the line.

The party had three-candidate strategies for Donegal and Cavan-Monaghan, but these did not seem entirely feasible.

There were already two Sinn Féin TDs in Donegal in Pearse Doherty and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. The third candidate there was seasoned councillor Noel Jordan.

The three were spread across the constituency but it would have had to be a very good day for Sinn Féin for them to get three out of five seats in Donegal.

It was a more complicated story in Cavan-Monaghan which is still counting at the time of writing.

Frontbencher Matt Carthy was ahead of the whole pack on 13.5% but his running mates TD Pauline Tully and councillor Cathy Bennett were evenly split on around 9-10% after the first count. They made up 35% of the total vote, just below the last time.

It still looks likely that either Tully or Bennett will get a second seat but the party’s bid to grow its vote may have caused more nerves that it would have liked.

‘Too quick to be defeatist’

Sinn Féin councillor Joanne Bailey in Waterford said that the party needs to be aggressive with its candidate strategy, saying that it was “too quick to be defeatist” after the June local elections, when it didn’t do as well as hoped.

Bailey told The Journal at the Waterford count that the party took criticism for running a multitude of candidates but said this was crucial to growing its vote in a raft of areas.

She pointed to Waterford and to her own native Carlow-Kilkenny, where the party was polling well enough over the weekend to be unexpectedly in contention for two seats, before eventually finishing with just one. 

The five-seat constituency had been written off after Kathleen Funchion was elected to Europe earlier this year. It’s gone with a two-candidate strategy via Carlow and south Kilkenny to try and ensure a vote.

But Kilkenny-based Natasha Newsome Drennan and Carlow’s Aine Gladney-Knox both performed better than initially expected to boost the party. Newsome Drennan took a seat on the final count, just 132 votes ahead of Gladney-Knox who lost out. 

“You have to grow the party in these areas and you have to grow the candidates, put them forward. That’s the way we can keep growing and building more mass support,” said Bailey.