No surprises as Reilly tops the poll

No surprises as Reilly tops the poll

28 May 2014

THE Mournes was the easiest electoral area to predict before polling started and those predictions all came good.

Henry Reilly, running for UKIP but with a huge personal vote, topped the poll; SF and the SDLP each took two seats and the DUP and UUP secured one apiece.

The electoral area is essentially the Mournes coastal plain stretching from Newcastle around the foot of the mountains past Annalong and Kilkeel to Carlingford Lough close to Rostrevor.

Reilly, who was once a UUP councillor, retains a huge following in Mourne and the only question going into the election would how far ahead of the others would he be.

The answer was not that far. He polled 1,964 votes, less than 200 ahead of the SDLP’s Laura Devlin who achieved a remarkable result with 1,789 in her first election. Co-opted to replace the veteran Eamonn O’Neill, it had been expected that Devlin would run in Slieve Croob but with strong family links to Mourne she opted for home territory and the decision was vindicated as she was elected in the first count.

Sinn Fein will be particularly pleased with the polling power of sitting councillors Willie Clarke, from Down Council, and Sean Doran from Newry City Council.

The Republican Party took 28% of the vote — five per cent more than the SDLP on 23% — and will be looking towards adding to their seats in the future especially as Clarke and Doran comfortably exceeded the quota.

Clarke came home with 1,581 closely followed by Doran on 1,513 to ensure first round elections for both men.

With large surpluses from Reilly, Devlin, Clarke and Doran to be disposed off, and only three seats remaining to be shared out, the Mournes count was wrapped up fairly quickly.

The UUP standard bearer Harold McKee, who was just seven votes short of being elected on the first count, went through on the second count while Glynn Hanna (DUP) and Brian Quinn (SDLP) were returned on the fourth count.

McKee’s running mate, Jill Macauley, polled almost 500 votes but never challenged given the big first preference votes of the other parties.

Hanna, taking over from the long standing DUP councillor William Burns, came in just 27 votes short of 1,000 and will be pleased with his result, particularly given the dominance of Reilly in this area.

Quinn is a hard working community councillor from Ballymartin who is held in high esteem across the political spectrum.

NI 21 fielded Annette Holden in the election. Holden has worked for John McCallister since he became a South Down MLA, firstly when he was with the UUP and more recently when he left to set up NI21.

There was much talk around the count centre about the fate of the fledgling party in the wake of the furore surrounding Basil McCrea and everyone was keen to see if McCallister would attend the count to support his candidate and friend.

In the end McCallister did not turn up for the count, and neither did Holden who polled a disappointing 148 votes.