Connell vows Sinn Féin will "hammer on"

Thomas Lyons

After the dust had settled on a tough election for his party, and for himself, Noel Connell reflected on Sinn Féin's political disaster. Going from poll topper to missing a seat, albeit narrowly, is a hard station. Though his fate looked grim from an early stage of the count he remained positive at the Drumalee Count Centre, chatting and in good humour.

That affability was one of the assets that saw him pick up 1,753 votes last time out. When the tally numbers came through suggesting he only received 790 first preference votes the overwhelming reaction was one of shock. Asked if the early indications came as a surprise he said: “Of course it did, but what can you do?”

Twenty-four hours after the crowds emptied from the count centre the Mountnugent man reflected on where things went wrong: “It was probably to do with the division of the area and where I come from as well. I live on the Cavan-Meath border. It was more than likely the way we carved it out, it probably was that.”

The lesson learned come with the benefit of hindsight. Given where Sinn Féin stood after the last election, running two candidates looked be the intelligent thing to do: “The idea was to develop the party. That's what I was always pushing people to do. You can't go back at this stage. When you go home and get a good sleep and wake up the next morning you accept the damage, but the damage won't last that long. We will go out and hammer on and give it another shot at some stage or another along the line,” Connell said.

 

General election

The next consideration for the active Sinn Féin party member is the general election. Given that the party lost three council seats and just scraped one there are concerns for its standing: “It's a wakener up for us. We have to go out and make sure that doesn't happen to Pauline [Tully]. Pauline was always a great worker. I have full faith in her that she will learn the lesson from this.”

When asked about his future on Sunday Connell suggested that he may be “too old” to go before the electorate the next time out. When the sting of losing his seat had been given time to cool he was a little more open to the idea of a re-run: “I will rule nothing in or out, to be honest with you. That's coming back a bit from where I was on Sunday.

"When you're on the down slope and very tired you may make rash statements. When you go home, rest and talk to people and see the sadness that is out there you turn to yourself and say 'I think it's in us to go again', but we'll see what happens,” he concluded.