‘A big bold step, a high risk strategy’

“It was a big bold step, a high risk strategy. We went into this with our eyes open,” says Sinn Féin Director of Elections for Cavan-Monaghan, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, of his party’s “unanimous” decision to try to secure three seats.

The retired TD, who made history as his party’s first to be elected following the 1997 General Election, acknowledged it was always going to be a “far out reach”, and the result seen in the cold light of day is the “painful” loss of incumbent Cavan candidate Pauline Tully.

“Beyond words. Our thoughts are very much with her, her election team. But the one thing that marks us differently from the others is we are not in it for ourselves. We are team Sinn Féin.”

He says 2020, when Sinn Féin “ran two and secured two”, was a “breakthrough” moment akin to when Ó Caoláin himself became his party’s first TD following the 1997 election.

“We very boldly set out to try and get three elected. A totally new ball game, and overall, taking into account our loss, I still think we’ve accounted for ourselves very well.”

Implemented with near military precision, Sinn Féin divided the constituency with the focus of using candidate Matt Carthy’s momentum from 2020 (16,310 first preferences) to try and help his running-mates Pauline Tully and Cathy Bennett.

And it worked. Where he picked up more than 3,500 first preferences in Cavan five years ago, he got two-thirds of that support in 2024. He also ceded a significant portion of his Monaghan heartlands vote to Bennett, resulting in a first count take for Carthy of 9,363 - still higher than any other candidate in the field.

However, the only question hanging over from 2020 was how would Carthy transfer. About as well as anyone else it transpired. It was Fine Gael’s David Maxwell’s surplus (+ 4,140) that ultimately pushed him beyond the quota margin and his surplus (3,879) in turn was enough to get Bennett (+3,281) over the line too.

When the portion of North Meath (800 votes) attached to the constituency in 2020 is taken out of the equation, it shows the Monaghan Sinn Féin vote held “almost identical” in 2024, while Cavan was “slightly down” by just a couple of percentage points.

“The one thing you can see, with Pauline’s transfer rates, that Sinn Féin voters are committed voters because they believe in what we believe in,” states poll-topper Carthy. “For large periods of this count we were in first, second, and third. It wasn’t to be.”

He reflects that politics and elections especially can be a “cruel game” at times.

Sinn Féin, he states, came into this General Election in a “rebuilding” phase, following poor showings in both at local and European elections.

Then there were various high-profile and very public scandals to contend with - letters of reference for a paedophile press officer, controversies to do with alleged censorship leading to resignations, and a decision to stand by a high profile former senator caught sending a teenage boy inappropriate texts.

“We probably didn’t have long enough from the locals and Europe, and of course that was part of the consideration of Fine Gael. They wanted to have an election before SF could fully recover.”

Still, and despite it all, Sinn Féin were judging “the people’s mood”, and in the final weeks before the election was called “absolutely got the sense the tide was coming back” in their favour.

“I just get the sense had the campaign been a week or maybe two weeks longer we could have had an even better showing. I think people started to believe, I could feel it in the last week of the campaign, that there was a route to an alternative government led by SF.

“That’s why we took the risk to run a third candidate. It would’ve been much better had Pauline not lost her seat, and I think had the eliminations gone a little differently we could conceivably have won three.”

Of the factors no one could predict was Aontú’s Sarah O’Reilly’s popularity across the board, taking close to 600 more first preferences in Monaghan alone compared to last time.

An all together different factor was the glut of potential Cavan candidates concentrated in the east of the Breffni county and how the vote would split there.

“There was always going to be some displacement, that much was predicted,” he states.

But he describes Tully as having been an “outstanding TD” for the constituency over the past five years, but is in “no doubt” that this isn’t the last the local electorate has heard of her.

“Pauline is one of the strongest, most resilient people I know. As I said, she has been a phenomenal TD, particularly for the Cavan end of the constituency, and particular for her work on disabilities. I know it has been so much appreciated by the people of Ireland.”

‘Bittersweet’

His party colleague Bennett also paid tribute to her fallen running-mate, reflecting that her own personal success has been “bittersweet”.

“I wasn’t thinking this far in advance to be honest. We had our plan in place. But I did want to get elected. I make no bones of that. I want to do my best for the people of constituency, I always have. I just can’t thank the electorate enough for coming out and voting for me.

“I have been a County Councillor for the past 12 years. I feel I’ve put the work in, and as a message to anyone out there, hard work does pay off. That’s why Sinn Féin is where it is as a party today. The second largest in Ireland [in the Dáil].”