Sinn Fein adds candidate as Offaly local election race hots up

SINN Fein has selected another candidate in Tullamore for the council elections following the withdrawal of Theresa Bracken.

Tim Farrell will seek a seat in the Tullamore Electoral Area and will run alongside Aoife Masterson.

Mr Farrell, whose family background is in Kilbeggan, works locally in Tullamore in the motor trade and has been an active Sinn Fein member.

He attended the convention in Tullamore last July when Ms Masterson and Ms Bracken were selected. Ms Bracken announced in February that with regret she would no longer be a candidate “due to unavoidable personal circumstances”.

Mr Farrell has already been canvassing around Tullamore and has highlighted in particular his involvement in the Tullamore for Gaza group.

Meanwhile, in the Edenderry Electoral Area, Sinn Fein will also have two candidates.

Claire Murray's candidacy was first signalled at the Tullamore selection convention last year and she has been joined on the ticket by Rory Ryan.

A resident of Rhode, Ms Murray moved to Offaly from Dublin over 20 years ago. She works as a regional manager for Sinn Fein in Leinster.

Rory Ryan is a former student union president in Waterford.

Like Ms Masterson in Tullamore, Mr Farrell and the two Edenderry area candidates are contesting local elections for the first time.

In the Birr Electoral Area Sean Maher is the party's candidate. He 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.

Pictured at a Sinn Fein selection convention in Tullamore last year were candidate Tim Farrell (back, third from the left), and candidates Sean Maher and Claire Murray, former candidate Theresa Bracken and candidate Aoife Masterson (front, from left)

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.

Sinn Fein also suffered a blow in Offaly when Carol Nolan parted company with the party because of her pro-life stance during the abortion referendum.

She subsequently retained her Dail seat in 2020 as an independent and is supporting the Birr Area council candidacy of Banagher man Jonathan O'Meara.

Mr O'Meara is standing as an independent and will launch his campaign in Crank House, Banagher on Friday, April 19.