SINN Féin may be heading into the local government elections with the hope of asserting its status as the north’s largest party, but in Fermanagh and Omagh, it will be looking to make up for lost ground.
The party entered the 2019 election with 17 seats and the outside ambition of taking an overall majority of 21 on the 40-seater council.
Instead, it lost two seats in Co Fermanagh to the independent Paul McCluskey and Labour Alternative candidate Donal O’Cofaigh, largely on the back of health-focused campaigns.
Sinn Féin is running 22 candidates in 2023, one less than 2019, in a much smaller field overall in the constituency. Just 64 candidates are running this time around, 10 down from the last election.
Constituency notebooks:
- DUP expected to maintain dominance in Causeway Coast and Glens
- Belfast City Council a microcosm of the north
- Derry and Strabane to test Sinn Féin overhaul
- Unionists likely to remain majority in Antrim, Newtownabbey - but SF, Alliance eyeing more gains
- DUP face nervous wait in unionist dominated Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
- Independents aim to return in Ards and North Down, while Sinn Féin hopes to score first ever seat
Its main nationalist rival, the SDLP, has had a tougher time in the district.
A combination of division and defections in the Co Tyrone end of the constituency has cost the SDLP three seats, leaving the party with just five councillors overall.
The SDLP will field just one candidate in each of the seven district electoral areas (DEAs) this time around.
Its best chance of regaining a seat could be in the Omagh DEA, a traditional stronghold for the party.
But the SDLP hasn't held a council seat in Omagh since 2016, when the popular GP Jo Deehan left the party with fellow councillor Joanne Donnelly. The GP will run again as an independent on May 18.
The SDLP will also hope that the failure of Aontú to field a single candidate in the district could assist it in places like Mid Tyrone, where the independent anti-goldmine candidate Emmet McAleer took a seat in 2019.
[ READ MORE: Council elections 2019: full resultsOpens in new window ]
But where the SDLP is seemingly curtailing its ambitions, the Alliance Party’s decision to similarly contest all seven DEAs has produced its largest ever team of candidates in the district.
It secured a breakthrough at the last election, with Stephen Donnelly taking a seat in Omagh, the party's first in the DEA since 1997.
Fermanagh and Omagh is the only council in the north where the UUP remains the dominant unionist party.
Both the UUP and DUP will field nine candidates once again, with the Ulster Unionists looking to repeat its 100 per cent performance from 2019, when it secured nine seats.
The TUV has managed just two candidates in 2023, but if there is to be any kind of anti-protocol backlash in this election, TUV transfers in Enniskillen and Erne North could be a factor in the DUP expanding on its five seats at the UUP’s expense.
While there are fewer independents on the ballot paper in 2023, the battle for the four independents to hold onto their seats will present some of the most interesting battles.
Health played a crucial role in John McCluskey taking a seat in 2019. He lasted just ten months before standing aside, with the independent republican Eamon Keenan co-opted in his place.
He is effectively running on a one-two independent ticket in Erne East with Tina McDermott from the Save Our Acute Services campaign group.
While Sinn Féin is targeting a third seat in the DEA, the pair of independents should manage a quota between them.
The campaign to retain acute services in Enniskillen could also be a crucial factor in Labour Alternative candidate Donal O’Cofaigh holding onto his seat.
In Erne West, the outgoing independent republican and long-serving councillor Bernice Swift has endorsed Paul McGoldrick in another target seat for Sinn Féin.
CANDIDATES
Enniskillen
Paul Blake – SDLP (sitting)
Dermot Browne - Sinn Féin
Donald Crawford - TUV
Roy Crawford - UUP (sitting)
Keith Elliot - DUP (sitting)
Robert Irvine - UUP (sitting)
Tommy Maguire - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Jill Mahon - DUP
Andrea McMahon - Sinn Féin
Donal O'Cofaigh - CCLA (sitting)
Eddie Roofe - Alliance
Erne East
Richard Bullick - Alliance
Sheamus Greene - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Noeleen Hayes - Sinn Féin
Eamon Keenan – Independent (sitting)
Tina McDermott - Independent
Garbhan McPhillips - SDLP
Thomas O'Reilly - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Paul Robinson - DUP (sitting)
Victor Warrington - UUP (sitting)
Erne North
Diana Armstrong - UUP (sitting)
Eric Bullick - Alliance
Debbie Coyle - Sinn Féin (sitting)
John Coyle - SDLP (sitting)
Alex Elliott - TUV
John Feely - Sinn Féin
David Mahon - DUP
John McClaughtry - UUP (sitting)
Paul Stevenson - DUP (sitting)
Erne West
Elaine Brough - Sinn Féin
Aaron Elliott - DUP
Anthony Feely - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Adam Gannon - SDLP (sitting)
Declan McArdle - Sinn Féin
Gerard McCusker - Alliance
Paul McGoldrick - Independent
Mark Ovens - UUP
Mid Tyrone
Rosemary Barton - UUP (sitting)
Matthew Beaumont - Alliance
Roisin Devine Gallagher - Sinn Féin
Anne Marie Fitzgerald - Sinn Féin
Shirley Hawkes - DUP
Pádraigín Kelly - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Emmet McAleer - Independent (sitting)
Bernard McGrath - SDLP
Patrick Withers - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Omagh
Matthew Bell - UUP (sitting)
Josephine Deehan - Independent (sitting)
Stephen Donnelly - Alliance (sitting)
Kathy Dunphy - Independent
Amy Ferguson - Socialist Party
Catherine Kelly - Sinn Féin
Marty McColgan - Sinn Féin
Barry McElduff - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Brenda Mellon - SDLP
Errol Thompson - DUP (sitting)
West Tyrone
Mark Buchanan - DUP (sitting)
Glenn Campbell - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Anne-Marie Donnelly - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Joyce Donnelly - Alliance
Mary Garrity - SDLP (sitting)
Stephen McCann - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Colette McNulty - Sinn Féin
Allan Rainey - UUP (sitting)
