Who was elected in your area?: Cork City South East

Thu, 13 Jun, 2024 - 07:00

Amy Power

THE South East ward was perhaps the most competitive in the southside with all six incumbent councillors seeking to renew their term on council.

Former Lord Mayor Terry Shannon, first elected in 1999, was the first to be deemed elected onto the new council from the ward.

He was elected on the eighth count with 2,302 votes including transfers.

“Funnily enough I topped the poll in my first election and now I’ve done it again 25 years later so it’s a nice reaction,” he said.

“I just want to take the opportunity to thank all the electorate of the South East ward – Ballinlough, Blackrock, Albert Road, Mahon, Rochestown, Douglas, Donnybrook, and surrounding areas for the tremendous support they’ve given me and Fianna Fáil in this election. It’s been tremendous.”

His running mate councillor Mary Rose Desmond was also elected.

Mr Shannon said he was heartened to see how well the party had performed in this year’s local elections.

He said the reception to the party at the doors had been a positive one during the campaign and they were hopeful of such a result.

“One of my canvassers said ‘we were in one part of Beaumont and people were standing at the door waiting for us to come up and people telling us we’re a Fianna Fáil house’ and we haven’t had that in a while so we felt very confident and we were getting the same feedback from other candidates around the city,” he said.

Also elected in the ward at the time of print was the Lord Mayor Kieran McCarthy.

“This is my fourth election. It doesn’t get easier emotionally,” he said after a long wait to get the result.

The Independent councillor, who was elected on the ninth count also with 2,302 votes including transfers, said it had been difficult juggling an election campaign with the demands of the Lord Mayor’s office.

“I think when you’re trying to balance the demands of the office and balance the demands of canvassing… the last 10 weeks have been very, very hard,” he said.

“A sincere thanks to all those people in the South East that keep coming out and they keep voting.

“It’s a great honour to be Lord Mayor going into the AGM and the tradition to hand over the chain to whoever the next lord mayor may be, we’ll probably know in the middle of the week I’d say at this point in time,” he added.

The ward, which takes in areas such as Ballinlough, Mahon and part of Douglas, saw three Fine Gael candidates (Des Cahill, Deirdre Forde and Barry O’Brien), three Independents (Kieran McCarthy, Shannon Wright, Tony Field), two Fianna Fáilers (Mary Rose Desmond and Terry Shannon), two Sinn Féin candidates (Chris O’Leary and Michelle Cowhey Shahid), and one each from the Green Party (Honore Kamegni), the Social Democrats (Susan Doyle), the Labour Party (Peter Horgan), The Irish People (Michael O’Riordan), Workers’ Party (Rachel Hurley Roche) and Rabharta (Lorna Bogue) all seeking election.

Fine Gael’s Des Cahill held his seat, but his party colleague Deirdre Forde lost out, while the Labour Party's Peter Horgan and the Green Party's Honore Kamegni were elected to Cork City Council for the first time.

Cork City South East