It took until early this morning for all 7 seats in the Castlebar electoral area to be filled, following long nights of counts in the count centre in the TF Royal in the county town.
Both Fine Gael’s Ger Deere and Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne were elected on the first count, with 1958 and 2405 votes resepectively.
Counts then went on for a significant length of time, with no one candidate reaching a quota while candidates on the lower end of the votes were eliminated and their votes were redistributed.
It wasn’t until the 11th count that saw Fianna Fail’s Blackie Gavin retain his seat with 1960 votes.
On count 13, Fianna Fail’s Al McDonnell claimed his seat with a final vote of 1839.
On count number 14, the remaining 3 seats were taken, namely by Independent Harry Barrett on 1167, Fine Gael’s Cyril Burke on 1546 and his party colleague Donna Sheridan on 1230 votes.
