Election fever grips Tipperary

General Election fever is in the air in Tipperary this week after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pulled the trigger on the starting gun on Tuesday by announcing that voting day would be Saturday, February 8th.
Speculation was rife in recent days that Mr Varadkar was about to dissolve the Dáil, sending grassroot political party supporters and candidates into overdrive as the campaign to woo voters gets underway.
Prompted by the imminent contest ahead, the poll topping Lower Ormond Independent councillor Joe Hannigan was quickly out of the blocks last weekend to announce that he will contest the election in Tipperary – hoping to improve on his wonderful performance in the last election in 2016 when he shocked political pundits by coming very close to winning a seat in Offaly.
Meanwhile, the Tánaiste Simon Coveney visited Nenagh on Monday night to rally his party’s troops, and officially open the Fine Gael election office in Pearse Street and launch the campaign of Fine Gael candidate Mary Julian Newman.
Mr Coveney was greeted by Ms Newman Julian and enthusiastic crowd of party supporters, in a move that underlines a strategic bid by the party to maximise its vote throughout the county, with her running mate Garret Ahearn appearing to be concentrating primarily on his political heartland of Clonmel and the wider south Tipperary area.
Meanwhile, the imminent announcement of the election prompted the former Chairman of the Tipperary County Board of the GAA, Toomevara's Donal Shanahan, to issue a statement announcing his withdrawal from the contest. Mr Shanahan, a former member of Fianna Fáil's National Executive, took the political world and almost everybody else by surprise when he announced in July 2018 that he was going to stand as an Independent candidate. But with no real public evidence of a campaign by him since that announcement 19 months ago, his withdrawal hardly came as a surprise.
“I have reached this decision having consulted widely with family and friends in recent days,” said Mr Shanahan, as he opted out of the contest. “I would like to thank the many people over recent months who encouraged me and had pledged their support for me as an Independent candidate.”
Local Labour Party TD Alan Kelly said the forthcoming election would be one of the most critical ever for Tipperary. “The electorate have a big decision to make. The next few years will be very defining given where our country will stand in a post Brexit era,” said Mr Kelly.
Urging voters to get behind him, said he was the best candidate to represent the peopole of Tipperary in the Dáil.
He said: “The people of Tipperary need strong representation in Dáil Eireann and in Government. I have a track record of delivering for Nenagh and all of Tipperary whether in Government or indeed in opposition. Whether in jobs, health, education or the provision of critical infrastructure I have always delivered for the Nenagh and the county. I have given one hundred percent and represented the people of the county across so many different issues and campaigns. Over the next few weeks the electorate must decide on who can best deliver for them. I believe my track record demonstrates that I am best positioned to do that into the future.”
The wily old political fox Michael Lowry was first out of the traps in Tipperary last weekend when he announced that an election was now inevitable and that the campaign would soon be “well underway”.
It is now, and Mr Lowry will be hoping that he can top the poll again in Tipperary for a record breaking sixth consecutive time in what for him has been, to date, a truly remarkable political career, topping the poll in every election since 1997.