Local Elections: Kilkenny County Council results

Fifty candidates, spread across four local electoral areas, are in the running for 24 seats on Kilkenny County Council.

Fianna Fáil (11) and Fine Gael (nine) won all but four of the seats in 2019 with Labour winning two and the Green Party and Independent candidate Eugene McGuinness each taking one.

Castlecomer-based Cllr Denis Hynes left the Labour Party ranks mid-term to join Sinn Féin. The Green Party seat was co-opted to Maria Dollard following Malcolm Noonan’s election to the Dáil in 2020.

McGuinness took the final seat in Kilkenny City after gaining profile as an opponent of a mosque planned for the Hebron area, which was denied planning permission by An Bord Pleanála shortly before the 2019 poll. He is a brother of Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness, whose son Andrew has topped the poll in the Kilkenny City electoral area for Fianna Fáil in the last three local elections.

On the doorsteps, candidates say, voters are raising concerns about housing difficulties, agricultural conditions, the need for regeneration of villages and towns, immigration, dwindling numbers of GPs and veterinary surgeons, and the increased cost of living.

Three Fianna Fáil councillors are not seeking re-election – Matt Doran and Patrick O’Neill (Callan-Thomastown) and Eamon Aylward (Piltown), whose father Liam served as a TD, minister of State and MEP.

Twenty candidates are seeking election to seven seats in Kilkenny city, with 12 runners in Piltown and nine each in Castlecomer and Callan-Thomastown.

Callan – Thomastown: 6 seats

Castlecomer: 6 seats

Kilkenny: 7 seats

Piltown: 5 seats

[ View 2019 Kilkenny County Council results ]