Fascinating battle in store in new Mayo five-seater constituency

For many years, we had certainties going into General Elections in Mayo but ahead of voting day on November 29, there are a whole host of uncertainties this time round in Ireland's largest geographical constituency.

For the first time in 73 years, there will not be a Kenny or a Ring on the ballot paper in Mayo, following the retirement of Michael Ring after 45 years in public life and Enda Kenny's retirement in 2020. The absence of a huge voter getter like Ring from the race opens up a whole host of possibilities and at least ten of the current 16 candidates in the field will have aspirations of taking one of the five seats on offer in Mayo.

As it stands, Fine Gael are running four candidates, there are four Independent candidates, both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin are running two candidates each, and there is one candidate from Independent Ireland, People Before Profit, Aontú and the Green Party.

There were only four seats available in the constituency in the 2020 election and with Ring retiring, the other three sitting TDs are seeking re-election – Dara Calleary (Fianna Fáil), Alan Dillon (Fine Gael) and Rose Conway-Walsh (Sinn Féin).

It would be a major surprise if one of the three sitting TDs were to lose their seats but they all face significant challenges.

Calleary has been a TD in Ballina for 17 years and he should be re-elected but he does face a new challenge in Ballina from former Independent Mayo county councillor, Mark Duffy, who joined the Fine Gael ranks last month to run in the General Election.

Duffy was elected on the first county in June's local election with a first preference vote of 2,325 and as a fresh-faced 32-year-old, he is expected to pick up votes right across the county.

Alan Dillon has enjoyed a very high profile first term as a TD and now junior Minister in the Dáil. The former inter-county footballer and two-time All-Star is now seen as 'the captain' of the Fine Gael team in Mayo but he knows only too well that he has to substantially increase his first time preference vote of 5,198 which he received in the 2020 election. He faces plenty of competition in the county town of Castlebar and he definitely won't be heard saying anywhere that he has a 'safe seat'.

The other sitting TD Rose Conway-Walsh also faces significant challenges ahead of polling day. She knows she is very unlikely to match her extraordinary performance from 2020 when she was elected on the first count with a whopping 14,633 first preference vote and many have questioned the decision to add a second Sinn Fein candidate to the ticket in the shape of veteran councillor, Gerry Murray, with a fear that the Sinn Fein may be split and do damage to Conway-Walsh's chances of being re-elected.

The three sitting TDs will be leaving no stone unturned in the coming weeks to make sure they are re-elected and despite the stated challenges they all face, they should do enough to return to Dáil Éireann once the votes are counted on November 30 at the count centre in the TF Royal Theatre in Castlebar.

A fierce battle is likely in Mayo for the final two seats on offer. Fine Gael will fully expect to take at least one of those seats but at the moment it is very hard to decipher which of their other three candidates is in poll position.

Mark Duffy would be the likely favourite abut first time candidates Martina Jennings and Keira Keogh have positives which they can point to giving them a chance of a seat.

Jennings has enjoyed a high profile over the last number of years as CEO of Mayo Roscommon Hospice and will be expected to poll strongly in South Mayo, while Keogh has the backing of Michael Ring to fall back on. She will be relying on polling very strongly in her hometown of Westport and also all the coastal region of the county from Westport all the way up to Belmullet. If she gets even half of Michael Ring's vote of 14,796 from the 2020 election, she will be a major factor in the race for a seat in Mayo.

Fianna Fáil have adopted just a two candidate strategy and rely on former TD Lisa Chambers to regain her seat. Chambers was a very high profile casualty in the 2020 election, where she polled over 1,100 more votes than Alan Dillon but lost her seat to Dillon due to the fact that he was much more transfer friendly.

Chambers knows she has to have a strong first preference vote to really get into the race for a seat and therefore she will hope to pick up lots of number ones in the south and west of the constituency, with running mate Calleary concentrating on the north and east of the county.

Outside of the candidates from the three main parties, Independent councillor Patsy O'Brien is probably seen as the most likely of the rest of the candidates to get into the race for a seat.

The former Fine Gael councillor ran as an Independent for the first time back in the June local elections and easily topped the poll with 2,739 first preference votes. He will of course have to pick up a lot of votes outside of his south Mayo base to get into the running for a seat but he has the backing of the other Independent councillors on Mayo County Council and his background in farming circles is also a big factor.

Chris Maxwell caused the biggest shock of all in the local elections when he topped the poll in the Westport/Belmullet Municipal District. Having only been a councillor for some five months, many were surprised that he decided to run in the General Election but it does seem like this was a consequence of him joining Independent Ireland in the run up to the local elections.

He has been accompanied on his campaign so far by new Independent Ireland MEP Ciaran Mulloly and Maxwell may well feel he is the best candidate in the field to benefit from anti-Goverment sentiment in Mayo.

Two other candidates who will also be hoping to benefit from voters not happy with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are Aontú's Paul Lawless and Independent Stephen Kerr. Both too have the issue of immigration high on their list of priorities and while they are unlikely to getting into the running for a seat, the transfer of their votes could go along way to deciding who takes the last two seats.

The other candidates in a swelled field of sixteen candidates are the Green Party's Micheál 'Boxty' O'Conaill, People Before Profit's Joe Daly and Independent Sean Forkin. The Green Party and People Before Profit have struggled to gain a foothold in Mayo but O'Conaill and Daly have raised a lot of important issues in the campaign so far and they are to be commended for having the backbone to put their names on the ballot paper in Mayo. Forkin has run in both local and general elections before but only received 59 votes when he ran in the 2020 general election.

So, as things stand in Mayo, it really is all to play for in the days running up to polling day on November 29.

The three sitting TDs look likely to retain their seats but they will be taking nothing for granted as things stand. Six Sitting TDs, namely Lisa Chambers, Michelle Mulherin, Jerry Cowley, John Carty, Tom Moffatt and Jim Higgins, have all lost their seats since the turn of the millennium which show Mayo voters are not afraid of change. That will give the other candidates in the field plenty of hope ahead of what promises to be a fascinating battle.