All to play for in Ballyjamesduff EA as picture emerges from tallies

Anticipation building since early morning

A number of boxes have been opened so far in the Local Election Count for the Ballyjamesduff Electoral Area.

Anticipation has been building here at Cavan Leisure Centre since early morning as the final preparations were made for the opening of Local and EU Elections ballot boxes at 9am.

And with tallymen on hand, proceedings kicked off shortly after 9am.

With 20% of the vote tallied in the Ballyjamesduff electoral area - Independent Ireland Cllr Shane P. O'Reilly, who ran under the Fianna Fáil banner last time out, is leading the field with 18.8% of the vote.

He's followed by Cllr Trevor Smith (Fine Gael) on 14%, Lester Gordon (Shamrock Independents) on 12.1%, Noel Connell (SF) on 10.5%, newcomer Nathan Galligan for Fianna Fáil on 7%. Aontú's Grainne McPhillips is on 4.7% and Sinn Féin's Angela Gaffney has 4.5%

But other candidates are expected to make inroads as further boxes from their core areas are opened.

Tallies from the boxes from Bruskey NS and St Clare’s NS are indicating at the moment that Councillor Trevor Smith (FG) could be on target to top the poll after securing close to 120 first preference votes. Interestingly there were no spoilt votes in the Bruskey NS but there were seven from the St Clare’s NS box.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Noel Connell is also polling well (60 first preferences) as are the Fianna Fáil candidates - sitting Cllr Philip Brady and newcomer Nathan Galligan. Aontú’s Grainne McPhillips is also in contention for a seat as is the dark horse in this local electoral area - Lester Gordon.

Sitting councillors TP O’Reilly, Winston Bennett and Shane P O’Reilly are also polling; however, votes for them were a little on the scarce side in the aforementioned boxes.

So, it’s onwards and upwards as they say and it won’t be long before the serious job of counting gets under way here in Cavan. Cllr Trevor Smith told the Anglo Celt that he remains hopeful but added: “There is always an upset during elections so hope is the way to go.”