*Donna McGettigan TD (SF). Photograph: Joe Buckley
SHANNON is still Ireland’s newest town, six decades on from its creation it can now lay claim to a TD following the election of Donna McGettigan (SF).
Donna was the third TD elected in Clare, she polled 7,843 first preference votes as Sinn Féin returned a member of Dáil Éireann for the second election in a row, a feat it had not recorded since 1922.
On both Saturday and Sunday for the election count at Treacy’s West County Hotel in Ennis, Donna was the first candidate to arrive at the count centre. When she landed in the county town, she did so as a county councillor, when she headed for home on Sunday evening she was a TD.
Of the transition in job titles, she remarked, “It sounds a bit weird alright but it’s absolutely amazing. It would not have happened only for everybody to come out and voted first, even giving us transfers because transfers are very important here as you know yourself, but the team around us that were out, like, this I’ve never seen a dedicated team like them before, the rain, the wind, the they were out and they came along with us knocking on doors, and it was amazing”.
Becoming the first TD from Shannon was a source of immense pride for McGettigan. “That’s an incredible achievement for anyone, it just shows Belfast born Banner woman but yeah, anything’s possible and the first female Cathaoirleach of the Shannon Municipal District so the first of everything and I hope I do the job well, I hope I’m the strong voice for the people of Clare, that is what I’ll be doing and I hope I don’t let anyone down, I’ll be doing my best”.
Speaking at The Electoral Chair: Election Debate, Donna made it clear she was keen to win back ‘the Sinn Féin seat’ won by Violet-Anne Wynne (IND) in February 2020, which she kept following her exit from the party in February 2022. Doing just that brought a sense of satisfaction, “What a proud moment it was for us to win back that seat, that was a Sinn Fein seat. I know it could’ve gone back in, and it would’ve had to go out to convention and back out for election, it was a Sinn Féin seat, and the numbers today prove that, the numbers from the previous elections proved Sinn Féin vote was there, that wasn’t a personal vote”.
Two weeks in advance of polling day, Donna noticed a change in the doors with a more positive reception for Sinn Féin. “The one refreshing thing I find when we went the doors and when someone would answer the door and they come out and go, ‘we read your policy’ and they were asking us different questions on it, which meant they were looking into us and seriously considering us, and that was very refreshing and I kind of felt there was a change then when the policy started coming out and, you know, people believed in the policies, the fact that they’re fully costed. I think the word change was in people’s minds, the fact that we were probably the most, transfer friendly party here”.
Former Shannon councillor and an ex colleague of Donna’s, Gerry Flynn (IND) told The Clare Echo that Sinn Féin had “smoothed over the edges” when describing how they were picking up more transfers in the county than before. Across ten counts in 2020, Wynne picked up 2,916 transfers whereas McGettigan pulled 4,193 across the sixteen counts this time.
Of the 4,193 transfers, there were big gains from the distribution from Roisin Garvey (GP) (1233), Hilary Tonge (SD) (840), Eddie Punch (II) (810 and June Dillon (AON) (413). The rise in Sinn Féin transfers was welcomed by Donna, “it was lovely for us to see, we picked up votes in every single box, we picked up transfers in every single and in fact, we were I mean, if you look at the very first person that was elected, it took until the thirteenth count for them to be elected, I’m not going naming the persons but it just shows the transfers, we were coming up behind them the whole time and the transfers really were important”.
Fighting the cause for an emergency department in Ennis was listed by Donna as the issue she was looking forward to tackling as a TD. “Ennis A&E, that’s been something that’s been I’ve been fighting on for years, Ennis A&E is a huge issue. Clare is a very tourist county, and I love Clare, you know, so I’d love to be trying to help the tourism sector and the West of Clare which kind of doesn’t have a presence in the area (no TD) so it’s something that all four of us need work together towards”.
When asked if this was something she’d be doing from the opposition benches in Leinster House, McGettigan said, “We will have to wait and see”.
Entering into a coalition with Fianna Fáil should not be ruled out, the Sinn Féin TD maintained. “Here’s the way we look at it, we will talk to anyone simply because they might have given number 1 to Fianna Fáil and they might have given us a number two, and if we don’t talk to everyone, we’re disenfranchising those voters, and that’s not right. It’s not right to go and say to someone, you may have voted for us, but we’re not going to talk to anybody else that we just believe that we need to talk to everybody, and we’ll see where we go”.
Co-opted onto Clare County Council in February 2020 following the death of Mike McKee (SF) in November 2019, when he was elected to the Council in 2014 he became Sinn Féin’s first representative since 1975. He was among the late figures that Donna was thinking of following her biggest political success. “He would be (very proud), he’s been here with us and another friend Hannah who we lost, her anniversary was yesterday so the two anniversaries fall next to each other, but there was also Mags O’Connor and Big Jim, these are all people that were very influential in my life and with Sinn Féin Clare, they are all very much in our thoughts”.
She retained the Council seat at the local elections in June when she was the second candidate elected in the Shannon Municipal District. She was an unsuccessful candidate in the Ennis MD in 2019, at the time she was also Runaí of Clare Sinn Féin Comhairle Ceanntair and a Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle delegate.
