Old order swept aside

The 2011 general election in Meath has seen Fine Gael achieve unprecedented success in a county which has previously always been a Fianna Fail stronghold, taking two of the three seats in each of the Meath constituencies. The re-emergence of Labour in Meath East and the victory of Sinn Fein in Meath West means that Fianna Fail is now in a position it has never been in since the party was founded in 1927 - it is without a Dail deputy in Meath. Prudent vote management in Meath East saw Fine Gael councillor Regina Doherty elected alongside sitting TD Shane McEntee, with Labour senator Dominic Hannigan topping the poll there. The big shock in Meath East was outgoing Fianna Fail TD Thomas Byrne's loss of his seat with just 13 per cent of first preference votes. Hannigan topped the poll and was eventually elected with 12,382 votes on the fourth count, well over the quota of 10,689. While their own figures had shown him doing well in the lead up to the poll, he said he was astounded and delighted with the result. The party had done a lot of work in both urban and rural Meath over the last few years, he said. While the Meath East outcome was very predictable from tallies early in the day on Saturday, the Meath West outcome was less than clear-cut. Damien English topped the poll with 9,290 votes, just short of the quota of 10,045, and was easily elected. Ray Butler, who had to fight to get onto the Fine Gael ticket before he even got to fight the election, emerged as the second Fine Gael TD in Meath West, and Sinn Fein's Peader Toibin followed his party leader Gerry Adams into the Dail. Fianna Fail's vote collapsed in Meath West, with both candidates, Johnny Brady, TD, and Cllr Shane Cassells, finishing behind the three elected candidates, the eliminated Catherine Yore of Fine Gael and Jenny McHugh of Labour. Cllr McHugh was in the reckoning until the last count, but Cllr Yore, who had received widespread national media coverage, failed to make the desired impact. Neither Deputy Brady nor Cllr Yore appeared at Saturday's counting of votes in Trim GAA centre, as tallies showed them struggling from early on. Deputy Shane McEntee was delighted with his own success in Meath East, but said it would have been regarded as failure if Fine Gael had not got Regina Doherty elected as well. Fine Gael in Meath East had adopted a strategy utilised by Fianna Fail in the past - vote management - and had split the constituency between the two candidates, favouring Cllr Doherty more as Deputy McEntee had a higher profile. The wisdom of Fine Gael running three candidates in Meath West had been questioned, but Noel Dempsey's departure from Dail politics meant that Trim and south Meath was open country, and Ray Butler was added. Deputy English said the party worked very hard there to get the vote evenly distributed. Ray Butler was always confident of taking a seat. Cllr Peadar Toibin becomes Sinn Fein's first TD in Meath since Liam Mellowes some 93 years ago, and built up on the support nurtured by Cllr Joe Reilly over the years, as well as his own profile through the Save Navan Hospital campaign, of which he was chairperson. With Fine Gael and Labour set to go into government, Cllr Toibin pointed out that he looks set to be the county's only opposition TD. In Louth, which also includes part of East Meath, Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams was elected, along with Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd, Labour's Ged Nash and, ironically given last year's Leinster final debacle between Meath and Louth, the Louth senior football manager, Peter Fitzpatrick, who will be representing Fine Gael in east Meath and Louth. Fianna Fail, meanwhile, will be seeking to rebuild what was once the dominant party in Meath, with its defeated candidates now looking to the Seanad as a possible route into Leinster House. However, there will be intense competition for the senate elections, given the amount of failed Fianna fail candidates there are across the country.