GE 2024: Cllr Antóin Watters happy with result in Louth

Cllr Antóin Watters has said that he is happy with the result he achieved in the General Election and is humbled by the support he received from his Cooley base and across north Louth.

The Sinn Féin councillor took 3,801 first preference votes and held on until the 15th count, where he was eliminated. The distribution of his votes saw Cllr Watter's party colleague Ruairí Ó Murchú being elected on the 16th count, and Ó Murchú's surplus getting Cllr Joanna Byrne over the line on the 17th count.

Speaking to the Dundalk Democrat on Sunday night after his elimination, an upbeat Cllr Watters said: “I'm glad I took a run at it, it was a great opportunity, I'd a very short campaign. I know the election was only called at the start of November but I still had a short timeframe, other people were out longer, but I still threw the kitchen sink at it and give it a good go.

He continued, “I'm happy with the results I got, I'm very humbled by the support in my base, the Cooley Peninsula and north Louth was very very good to me, I was delighted to see. I think I topped the poll in nearly every box in the Cooley Peninsula. That's very good and it's good to see that it's following up from my local election result.

“Look, nothing ventured, nothing gained and I'm delighted for my colleagues, Ruairí [Ó Murchú] and Joanna [Byrne], they've done really really well, and we worked really well as a team. Three, I thought, good candidates and we gave it a good lash, and hopefully now my votes will bring them over the line and see them elected tonight.”

Reflecting on the short campaign, Cllr Watters said, “Look, it was a good experience and I'm looking forward to just getting back to the normal, my council day to day business and catching up on all that over the next week or so. It was a tough couple of weeks, I won't say it wasn't, we covered a lot of ground, I'll enjoy maybe a couple of days off just to recharge, and get back to business next week.”

On a possible second run in another five years time, Cllr Watters mused, “ah look, I'm young enough, I'm only 35, 36 at Christmas, so you never know what will happen.”

Acknowledging that the experience is another string to his now, Cllr Watters added, “it's all experience. It's never always going to be plain sailing in politics and we all know that, so I'm delighted I went and took the chance on and give it the best shot I could this time, so we'll wait and see how things go over the next couple of years, but I still have four and a half years on the Council term and I have a lot of stuff to do, so we'll go at that.”