Limerick made history this June as it became the first place in Ireland to directly vote for their own Mayor. Live95 was right across the story with reporters at the count centre in Limerick Racecourse, Patrickswell covering every twist and turn from the moment the boxes were opened to the final election of John Moran.
The campaign had been a long one as the first candidate had declared their intention to run for the position before Christmas 2023. Over the course of the six months leading up to the election itself Live95 had interviewed all fifteen candidates in the race and had conducted two rounds of debates featuring a different mix of candidates each time.
On top of this coverage there were regular updates on Live95’s Limerick Today programme and we curated a number of explainer videos which were broadcast on our social media channels which listed the new powers that the Mayor would have and described the way the new Mayor would interact with sitting councillors and the council executive.
Live95 also featured interviews with political experts to give their analysis of the legislation and we aired the views of some critics who believe the creation of the role is a mistake.
All these interviews were available as podcasts for our listeners and there was a dedicated page on the Live95 website and app allowing people to access all the information they needed about the role and the candidates.
While voters went to the polls in the local, European and Limerick Mayoral elections on the same day, Friday June 7th, the counts for each of these elections took place separately.
In Limerick the votes were separated and European ballot papers were transferred to Cork to be counted while the count for the local elections got underway on Saturday afternoon, June 8th.
The count for the Mayoral election did not begin officially until Monday June 10th, but tallies had already given us a picture and very early on it was clear that it would take nothing short of a miracle for any candidate to surpass Independent John Moran’s vote.
The first count revealed that John Moran had secured 18,308 votes with Independent Helen O’Donnell taking 12,903 votes. With fifteen candidates on the ballot paper it took several counts with eliminations before the final result was announced.
Daniel Butler of Fine Gael was eliminated after the tenth count and he shared his disappointment with Live95. His elimination was followed quickly by the elimination of Dee Ryan of Fianna Fáíl.
Live95’s Nigel Dugdale kept our listeners up to date with regular reports both on air and on our social media platforms. The final result was delivered on Monday evening with Live95 breaking into live programming to reveal the result…
