Beyond the banner: who was elected for Independent Ireland?

With one MEP and 23 councillors elected out of 63 candidates, Independent Ireland looks like it could be an influential grouping if it repeats the trick in the forthcoming general election.

Yet across the campaign, its candidates have faced repeated questions about what the party actually stands for.

In a statement, it said Independent Ireland stands for “improving the lives of hardworking people; protecting and providing for the vulnerable in society, and ensuring a lawful society can function freely, safely, and fairly.”

Independent Ireland, the statement added, values “integrity, transparency, accountability and a common sense approach.”

That line about ‘common sense’ was repeated regularly by many of the party’s candidates on the campaign trail. So what does it mean?

In this article, we profile the party and campaigns of its successful candidates, to try to understand the outlooks and ideologies involved.

Set up by TDs Michael Collins and Richard O’Donoghue from the Rural Independents group in the Dáil, Independent Ireland also boasts the membership of Roscommon deputy Michael Fitzmaurice.

On the campaign trail, Deputy Collins explained why he helped form the new party.

“I’d love to have stayed independent in my own right,” he told supporters at one candidate’s launch event, before adding: “I hate to say this, but I probably would get elected for as long as I want.

“But I felt – for the greater good of the people – we had to set a party up to put some new legs in under the table, and get rid of that bloody Green Party, because if we don’t get rid of them, they will get rid of each and every one of us.”

He continued, saying the aim was to be “a voice for the people” while referencing farming and fisheries issues.

Many of their successful candidates similarly focused on issues related to rural Ireland, but not all.

The biggest vote-getter

Long-time Cork City councillor Ken O’Flynn is the party’s spokesperson on urban affairs. He received most votes of all the party’s local candidates, attracting 3,134 first preference votes in the city’s North East local electoral area, one-and-a-half times the quota needed to be elected on the first count.

A former Fianna Fáil member, Cllr O’Flynn has in recent years worked with the party’s co-founder, Michael Collins, on the ‘Belfast or Blind’ bus, an initiative which sees elderly constituents brought from Cork to the Kingsbridge Private Hospital in Belfast to undergo cataract operations under the Northern Ireland Health Care Initiative and the former EU Cross Border Directive.

The initiative, launched in 2017, has facilitated at least 3,000 surgeries to date, according to Deputy Collins.

Like several other urban Independent Ireland councillors, but not all, Cllr O’Flynn is outspoken in his criticism of government immigration policy, and particularly of Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman.

In 2021, Minister O’Gorman tweeted links to a newly-published government document on its intention to end the direct provision system. The tweet was sent in eight different languages, with the minister saying they are the main languages spoken by residents in the direct provision system.

As recently as March 2024, Cllr O’Flynn referenced those tweets and said they amounted to issuing an invite for “everyone to come here,” an interpretation government politicians see as disingenuous.

Speaking after his re-election, Cllr O’Flynn told the Irish Examiner that, as a gay man, married to a Spanish man, he doesn’t have a problem with foreign people coming into Ireland.

He said he supports “a common-sense approach” to immigration and that he doesn’t believe in “hate for the sake of hate.”

He added that he intends to run for Independent Ireland in the upcoming general election.

Cllr O’Flynn was one of eleven sitting councillors who ran under the Independent Ireland banner in the local elections, and all were elected.

These included Danny Collins, (brother of party co-founder Michael Collins, whose other brother, John, was also elected for the party).

John O’Donoghue, (brother of the other co-founder, Richard O’Donoghue), Declan Geraghty who has been an independent councillor since 2019 in Mayo, and Declan Kelly, another long-time independent councillor in Galway.

Nigel Dineen, an independent councillor in Roscommon, was also among the successful incumbent historically-independent independents.

The former Fianna Fáilers

Several others elected under the Independent Ireland banner were former Fianna Fáil representatives who have since turned independent, among them is Shane P O’Reilly, who was re-elected to Cavan County Council.

First elected in 2004, he left Fianna Fáil in 2020. Like Cllr O’Flynn in Cork, Cllr O’Reilly has also been outspoken and critical of government immigration policy.

In October 2023, as a round-the-clock protest was on-going against the use of a site in Castletara as temporary accommodation for international protection applicants, Cllr O’Reilly publicly asked council officials at a meeting would they been given prior notice if a refugee was a “criminal or arsonist, a paedophile or a rapist.”

He took the first seat on the Ballyjamesduff Municipal District, after topping the poll on the first count.

Cllr O’Reilly publicly declared his support two of the most high-profile incumbent Independent Ireland candidates, who were also fellow former Fianna Fáil representatives, and critical of government immigration policy.

Cllr Seamus Walsh and Noel Thomas found themselves embroiled in controversy late last year for comments they made in light of an arson attack on the Ross Lake House Hotel.

The hotel, near Oughterard in Co Galway, was due to house up to 70 asylum seekers before it was targeted.

When asked about the fire, Cllr Walsh told Galway Bay FM that: “If it was a criminal act, what made that criminal act happen? It was the senseless policy of the Government.”

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland after the fire, Cllr Thomas said “the inn is full,” when asked about the Government’s immigration policy.

Both councillors were Fianna Fáil representatives at the time and were referred to the party’s internal rules and procedures committee. They resigned their party membership in March before declaring for Independent Ireland in the run up to 7 June.

Cllr Walsh was elected in the Conamara North Local Electoral Area (LEA) while Cllr Thomas topped the poll in Conamara South.

Cllrs Thomas was elected in the first seat declared in his ward, Cllr Walsh was elected in the second.

Also elected in Conamara South for Independent Ireland was Michael Leainde, a postman and undertaker who said he was “really sad” when he finished up canvassing because he enjoyed speaking to the people so much.

On his ambitions for office, Cllr Leanide told Galway Bay FM that “the most important things I see are the small things, like potholes on the sides of the road.”

Across in Co Offaly, Cllr Fergus McDonnell was elected for Independent Ireland in Edenderry. Another former Fianna Fáiler, he was first elected as a party representative back in 1985 and went on to represent the Progressive Democrats before going independent after that party folded around 2009.

He lost his seat on Offaly County Council in 2014 to the Green Party’s Pippa Hackett, who is now a senator and Minister of State for Biodiversity. Ten years on, he’s preparing to return to the council chambers. During the campaign, he told Offaly Live that immigration was a priority issue for his campaign.

The final former-Fianna Fáiler to find success with Independent Ireland was Chris Maxwell. Cllr Maxwell was elected in the Westport LEA of Mayo County Council, having campaigned on rural issues and what he called “bringing common sense back again to our dealings.”

He topped the poll and became the first Louisburgh-based candidate to be elected to Mayo County Council since 2009.

Other ‘post-party’ politicians

Several other Independent Ireland candidates also have their political roots in party politics.

Former Sinn Féin councillor Paul Hogan was elected on the 10th count in Athlone.

Cllr Hogan resigned from Sinn Féin in 2018 saying he was subjected to an “unrelenting bullying campaign” after 20 years of membership. He lost his seat in 2019 but was co-opted back on to Westmeath County Council in 2022.

At the start of his campaign, he said he “was the only elected representative locally to advocate a No/No vote in the referenda,” and that he was focused on housing, cost of living, broadband and rural issues.

Another councillor with ties to Sinn Féin is Carlow’s John Cassin who was contesting his fourth election. He was first elected to the Carlow Town Council in 2004, and retained his seat for the party in 2014.

Cllr Cassin ran as an independent in 2019 after his relationship with Sinn Féin soured over local strategy. Local candidates say Mr Cassin has long had a solid personal vote in working class areas of Carlow, and that they would see him as left-wing.

Deciding to join Independent Ireland just four weeks before the vote, according to those observing the count, he was elected on the 14th count based in large part on transfers from groups on the right side of the political spectrum.

Across the border in Co Kildare, former Labour party member Ger Dunne was elected in the Naas LEA on the 12th count. He was elected to Naas Town Council in 2009 but failed to win a seat on Kildare County Council in 2014, when town councils were abolished.

He left the Labour Party in 2019, telling the Leinster Leader he did so because he believed he’d have a better chance of winning a seat as an independent.

He received 755 votes first preference votes, and drew transfers, including – over half of the Irish People Party’s candidate’s transfers – to claim the final seat on the 12th count.

“I have been actively trying to get here for 20 years,” he told the Kildare Nationalist, “This is astounding. I was jumping out of the skin. I was crying earlier. I make no bones about it.”

Sporting chance

Shaun Cunniffe is another former Labour councillor who has been elected for Independent Ireland. He left Labour in 2013 due to the party’s stance on abortion.

Well-known locally for his involvement in the GAA, after his election he said his campaign focused on housing. He said he joined Independent Ireland because “we are being treated as an urban society when we’re not really that way” and because he liked the individuals involved in the grouping.

Ian Neary is another Independent Ireland candidate with significant local sporting links. Elected in Bray, Cllr Neary is an embroidery machine operator. He leaned into his links to a local soccer club during his campaign.

He also posted pictures of himself at protests in Newtownmountkenny which opposed the use of a site earmarked to accommodate international protection applicants.

On 28 April, two days after six people were arrested and three garda cars were damaged at the site, Cllr Neary posted an image of himself and colleagues at the site of a gathering about the site.

Holding a tricolour, he said Independent Ireland is “the only political party [whose] local reps attended to offer support to a community crying out to be heard.”

Other local representatives also attended the Newtownmountkennedy protests.

In Dublin, Philip Sutcliffe, the head of Crumlin Boxing Club, was elected for the party. He boxed for Ireland at the Olympics in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984, and was elected in the Ballyfermot-Finglas LEA.

One of his most vocal supporters in the lead-up to election day was well-known publican and MMA fighter Conor McGregor. Cllr Sutcliffe has been McGregor’s boxing coach, travelling to fight camps internationally with McGregor, and featuring in social media posts.

On his Facebook page, where he posted regular updates during the campaign, Cllr Sutcliffe shared his support for Derek Blighe, a prominent right-wing nationalist anti-immigration protester and a candidate with the group ‘Ireland First’.

Mr Blighe regularly speaks about “plantations” and “unvettable fake refugees” at anti-immigration gatherings around the country. He has said the war in Ukraine is a “fake war publicised to encourage economic migrants to come to this country”.

“If you’re in this man’s area, vote [number] one for Derek,” Cllr Sutcliffe posted about Mr Blighe, who was running in the Ireland South European constituency and Fermoy Local Electoral Area against Independent Ireland candidates.

Cllr Sutcliffe also reposted video content from abroad about “refugee grooming gangs” while adding his own words: “Remember all this when voting, our government are letting the likes of their kind into Ireland.”

Cllr Sutcliffe was a first-time candidate and received 821 first preference votes, getting a seat on the 10th count.

First time out

Another first-time councillor, Ger Curley, was successful in the Cobh LEA in Cork. He owns a bar in the town and aligned himself with a campaign group focused on maintaining rights-of-way around Port of Cork, as well as saying he wants to see local roads upgraded.

Also elected on this first time of trying was Daniel Sexton, who stood in co-founder of the party Michael Collins’s home base of Cork South-West, in the Clonakilty LEA.

Independent Ireland ran a candidate in each of the three west Cork electoral areas, with all of them being elected. Local observers say it demonstrates the sway Michael Collins has on his home turf.

Cllr Sexton said he stood for election in the hope of addressing issues like housing, rural planning, and local infrastructure.

Tommy Hartigan ran in Adare-Rathkeale and became Independent Ireland’s youngest elected candidate at 23. Cllr Hartigan had said he couldn’t align with any party because he didn’t align with them, but said Richard O’Donoghue TD of Independent Ireland offered him an alternative.

Like the party’s successful European Parliament candidate, Ciaran Mullooly, he campaigned saying “common sense will solve a lot of problems”.

On the campaign trail, Prime Time asked Mr Mullooly whether saying “‘common sense, common sense,’ is that that pure populism?”

“It may be, to the media,” the former RTÉ journalist of 27 years said, “but when you go around the country and they say ‘where do you stand?’ I say ‘I want to make things happen, I want to get things done, I want common sense… [because] people in government have lost touch.'”

On Friday, after he was elected, Mr Mullooly told RTÉ’s Drivetime that Independent Ireland was “very much centre” on the political spectrum.

He said he will be meeting “three or four groups” in the EU parliament but will not be joining the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping.

Mr Mullooly also said one of the party’s biggest priorities was agriculture, particularly nitrates derogation.

The only woman to be elected for Independent Ireland was Linda de Courcy, who ran in Clondalkin. She describes herself as a “Nutritional therapist, pilates instructor, seeker of Truth.” She also sells food supplements.

A prolific poster on social media, Cllr de Courcy’s recent updates have tended to centre on migrants, protests, and issues to do with transgender people.

In the lead up to the vote, Cllr de Courcy posted an image of a news article about the number of Ukrainians who qualified to vote in the local elections. “Now more than ever it’s imperative to make your vote count. If not, anyone and everyone can & will,” she added.

The local electoral area in which she stood encompasses Crooksling, where land on the site of a former HSE nursing home is being used to accommodate migrants. It has been the site of protests in recent months. A building was set on fire at the site in February.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms de Courcy posted on X that vitamin C was a “safe, effective and cheap” treatment.

She asked why people were wearing face masks, adding “all you are doing is making yourself ill by compromising your oxygen intake and CO2 elimination. Basic, basic biology people.”

She said that during the campaign she handed out 10,000 leaflets. On the leaflets she describes herself as “a new no nonsense voice for Clondalkin.”