An election to all 18 seats on
Sligo County Council
Sligo County Council ( ga, Comhairle Chontae Shligigh) is the authority responsible for local government in County Sligo, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housing and ...
was held on 24 May 2019 as part of the
2019 Irish local elections
The 2019 Irish local elections were held in all local authorities in Ireland on Friday, 24 May 2019, on the same day as the 2019 European Parliament election and a referendum easing restrictions on divorce. Each local government area is divid ...
.
County Sligo
County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in the county. Sligo County Council is the local ...
was divided into 3
local electoral area
A local electoral area (LEA; ga, Toghlimistéir Áitiúil) is an electoral area for elections to local authorities in Ireland. All elections use the single transferable vote. The Republic of Ireland is divided into 166 LEAs, with an average po ...
s (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on the
electoral system
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and Referendum, referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political ...
of
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
by means of the
single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...
(PR-STV).
Boundary review
The 2018 LEA boundary review kept the two
municipal district
A municipal district is an administrative entity comprising a clearly-defined territory and its population. It can refer to a city, a town, a village, a small grouping of them, or a rural area.
Brazil
In Brazil, municipal districts are, in genera ...
s used
in the 2014 elections, while transferring one seat from Ballymote–Tubbercurry to Sligo and splitting the latter into two LEAs. The changes were enacted by
statutory instrument
In many countries, a statutory instrument is a form of delegated legislation.
United Kingdom
Statutory instruments are the principal form of delegated or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom.
National government
Statutory instrument ...
(S.I.) No. 632/2018.
Overview
A total of 35 candidates contested the county's 18 seats,
of whom fifteen were outgoing councillors.
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christian- ...
and
Fine Gael
Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil ...
each had nine candidates.
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
had three, Solidarity/
People Before Profit
People Before Profit ( ga, Pobal Roimh Bhrabús, PBP) is a left-wing to far-left Trotskyist political party formed in October 2005. It is active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
History
PBP was established in 2005 as t ...
had two, while and one each for the
Labour Party,
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
and
Renua
Renua Ireland, commonly called Renua, is a fringe list of political parties in the Republic of Ireland, political party in Ireland. The party was launched on 13 March 2015, with former Fine Gael Teachta Dála, TD Lucinda Creighton as founding le ...
. The nine independent candidates included
Declan Bree
Declan Bree (born 1 July 1951) is an Irish independent politician. He was a founder of the Sligo/Leitrim Independent Socialist Organisation in 1974, and was a member of that group until joining the Labour Party in 1991. He served in Dáil Éi ...
, who was County Sligo's longest serving councillor. Thirteen of the fifteen candidates who were outgoing councillors were re-elected, including Bree who was first elected in
1974
Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...
to both the County Council and
Sligo Borough Council.
Several seats were decided by very narrow margins, and result was that Fine Gael gained three seats to become the largest party, with six seats. Fianna Fáil lost three seats, and the other group totals were unchanged.
The long-serving Bree was re-elected in the
Sligo–Strandhill LEA.
Results by party
Results by local electoral area
Ballymote–Tubbercurry
The Fine Gael director of elections made a formal complaint about the large increase in the number of
postal vote
Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors (and typically returned) by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system.
In an ele ...
s cast — 252 compared to 131 in the same district in the 2014 election and 20 and 17 in the other two districts in 2019. The ensuing
Garda investigation into potential
electoral fraud
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
was still ongoing in February 2022.
Sligo–Drumcliff
Sligo–Strandhill
Results by gender
Footnotes
Sources
*
*
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References
{{2019 Irish local elections
Sligo
Sligo ( ; ga, Sligeach , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the List of urban areas ...
Sligo County Council elections