Women dominate the Newport vote for Local Elections 2024

Female candidates were the dominant force in the Newport LEA with three of the four seats being taken by the fairer sex, with John Carroll filling the fourth seat on Sunday afternoon.

Fiona Bonfield, Pamela Quirke O’Meara, and Phyll Bugler will make up three-quarters of the electorate in the Nenagh Municipal District and Tipperary County Council in the next five years, in what is an unusual occurrence at any level of politics.

Indeed, Labour candidate Fiona Bonfield was the runaway candidate in the first tallies on Saturday and she led from the front to her election at the first count, registering a big total of 2,346 votes.

Bonfield is a popular figure in the Newport LEA and will be heading into her third term in the County Council and Municipal District meetings, continuing a rich tradition in her family, with her cousin and fellow Labour Party member Alan Kelly on hand to congratulate the Newport native in the Presentation Secondary School in Thurles last Saturady evening and Sunday morning.

Dr Phyll Bugler also produced the goods this time around to retain her seat.

The Ballina native was first elected to the County Council back in 2004 and will continue to make her presence felt in the Newport electorate for another five years at least, and in doing so, continues to keep Fine Gael’s interest in the Nenagh Municipal District strong, especially after the recent retirement of long time candidate Ger D’Arcy who had served on the Council since the early 1990s.

The role reversal from the 2019 election was never more pronounced with the further election of newcomer and Team Lowry candidate Pamela Quirke O’Meara who actually outperformed Bugler in terms of the votes she received.

A first timer to this arena, Quirke O’Meara ran a fine campaign with the aid of mentor Michael Lowry, and she will be eager to hold her own in the County Council and Nenagh MD meetings, stepping into the huge, vacated boots of John “Rocky” McGrath after he stepped aside from contesting these elections earlier in 2024 for health reasons.

What it meant come the close of the elections on Sunday evening, was that the Newport election became the only LEA in Tipperary to have a majority of female candidates making up the line up in 2024.

Not only that, but it came about convincingly. A sign of things to come across the county in the future perhaps?