Sinn Fein unveils first two Offaly candidates for 2024 local elections

SINN Fein will run two candidates in the Tullamore Electoral Area in the Offaly County Council election which is scheduled for June next year.

Party sources indicated that two candidates may also be selected to contest each of the other two areas in the county, Edenderry and Birr.

At a convention in the Tullamore Court Hotel on Friday evening, Aoife Masterson, a Tullamore native and Leinster House-based party worker, and Arden View woman Theresa Bracken, a social care practitioner, were formally endorsed as the Tullamore candidates for the 2024 local elections.

Sinn Fein is hoping to recover from the wipe-out at the last council election in 2019 when it lost all three of its Offaly seats.

Both Ms Bracken and Ms Masterson are first-time election candidates and the convenor of the meeting, party worker Gavin Gallagher, said they had come through a candidate assessment support process after being proposed by the Tullamore cumann and the south Leinster/Midlands cuige region.

Mr Gallagher thanked a number of members, including Claire Murray, who has been mentioned as a likely candidate in the Edenderry area, for the work they had done in “reforming the cumann and helping us get to where we are tonight”.

In her address to party members and supporters, Ms Bracken said she joined Sinn Fein because she wanted to be involved in the “change that is happening both north and south”.

Having worked for 18 years in social care she had seen the difficulties faced by the most vulnerable people.

“Time and time again I've seen families being failed, I've seen policies not being endorsed,” said Ms Bracken.

She said she had worked with the homeless services, people experiencing domestic violence, and those impacted by the housing crisis and spiralling rents.

“I will ensure that every voice is heard and every voice counts especially those that are most vulnerable and I will continue to advocate,” she said.

In her remarks, Ms Masterson (pictured below) paid tribute to those present at the meeting, saying they were the backbone of the party.

Ms Masterson said she had got involved in politics because from a young age her family (her father is Rory Masterson, formerly a teacher at Colaiste Choilm, Tullamore), had instilled in her a belief in fairness and equality.

From working in the NGO sector, Free Legal Advice Centre, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties she saw the difficulties ordinary people were facing, day in and day out.

“I saw the small things that lead to people falling through the cracks are what ultimately leads to a broken society,” said Ms Masterson.

She said she'd been struck by the fact that 233 people are now homeless in the Midlands, one in four of whom are children.

“For me it was impossible to stand by and not take action knowing that the current Fianna Fail-Fine Gael government are failing our children and our people in such a fundamental way.”

She said Tullamore had been neglected by the Government and had not been seen as important and promised that she would stand up for the area and for rural Ireland if elected.

Guest speaker, Longford-Westmeath Sinn Fein TD Sorca Clarke, called on all Sinn Fein activists to work hard to ensure the election of both Tullamore candidates.

“This may be a local government election but it's going to be fought and it's going to be won on national policies,” said Deputy Clarke.

She described Ms Bracken and Ms Masterson as “two strong republican women” and said they would both be returned to the Offaly council chamber if the campaign was right.

“You have got two brilliant candidates here to row in behind,” said the TD.

Another speaker, former Sinn Fein TD for Sligo-North Leitrim, Micheal Colreavy, said it was “uplifting” to see candidates of the calibre of Ms Bracken and Ms Masterson.

An uncle of Ms Masterson, Mr Colreavy said the two Tullamore women would be a team: “A team that is trying to bring about change that this area and Ireland so badly needs at this time.”

He warned party supporters that when canvassing they should “pass no house” because votes, whether they be first or second preferences, were available everywhere.

He also urged party volunteers to focus on the registration of 18-year-olds.

“Make sure that they are registered and talk to them about the importance of the vote.”

Mr Colreavy, who said he had been involved in Sinn Fein since the 1970s and through the hunger strike period, said the party's goal was a united republic of Ireland and a fair Ireland.

“We don't just want a change in the faces in the County Council, we want a new Ireland.”

Closing the meeting, Mr Gallagher, a Westmeath resident who was born in Co Down, said Sinn Fein had won 144 seats in the local elections in the North in May.

He revealed that Sinn Fein will run nearly 400 candidates in the council elections in the Republic next year where polls consistently showed support of between 30 and 35%.

“The establishment parties kept us out by coalescing, putting whatever petty differences they had aside and joined to keep us out,” he said.

The convention was also attended by Birr man Sean Maher, who was co-opted onto Offaly County Council in 2016 to replace the councillor elected in 2014, Carol Nolan, when she won a seat in the Dail.

Mr Maher contested the 2019 local election but did not hold the seat. That election also saw Sinn Fein lose the seats won five years earlier by Brendan Killeavy in the Tullamore Area and Martin O'Reilly in the Edenderry Area.

Mr Maher is now expected to seek a nomination to run again in the Birr Area and selection conventions will next be held there and in Edenderry.

The party's objective in Offaly will be to reverse the decline which began when area poll toppers Mr Killeavy and Mr O'Reilly opted out of politics and which was intensified when Carol Nolan and Sinn Fein parted company because of her pro-life stance during the abortion referendum. She subsequently retained her Dail seat in 2020 as an independent.