KEY POINTS
Highest turnout (62.4%) of any council area at last election
One of only two councils where the UUP outpolled the DUP in 2019
Sinn Féin dominates the nationalist majority of seats on the council
ABOUT THE COUNCIL AREA
The new council was a simple merge of the old Fermanagh District Council and Omagh District Council. Geographically it covers the largest area (21 times the footprint of Belfast City Council) and has one councillor for every 2,923 people (the highest representation for any council in NI).
PREVIOUS ELECTIONS
Sinn Féin has been the largest party on this council since its inception
Deborah Armstrong pipped her DUP colleague David Mahon to the last seat in Erne North by 27.02 votes
Cross Community Labour Alternative won their only 2019 council seat in the Enniskillen DEA
Alliance secured a seat for the first time in at the last election
4 independents were elected in 2019
Aontú recorded their highest share of the vote (2.1%) in this council, though all four candidates were quickly eliminated, and none received more than half a quota of first preference votes
SINCE 2019
Deborah Erskine was co-opted into the Assembly in September 2021
Sinn Féin councillor Sean Donnelly died in December 2021
Former UUP MLA, Rosemary Barton was co-opted back onto council in November 2022
A number of other councillors resigned and were replaced by co-option.
COMMENTARY
Fermanagh and Omagh District Council can boast the most engaged electorate in all of Northern Ireland with a turnout rate in 2019 that was a full 10 percentage points higher than the NI average. This council area has led Northern Ireland in turnout since its creation in 2014, always above 60%.
Sinn Féin are the largest party on the council with 15 councillors. The party won the plurality of the vote in every DEA in 2019, even though their overall vote and seat count were down on 2014’s results. Four out of the party’s five candidates running in Mid Tyrone were elected with a combined 3.7 quotas of first preference votes (though their lowest placed candidate was first to be eliminated).
At the last two elections, the UUP have come home with nine seats – the second largest party on council – well ahead of the DUP’s five, making this one of just two local authorities (Newry, Mourne & Down is the other) where the UUP bested the DUP. Fermanagh has been home to household names within unionism such as Arlene Foster, Tom Elliott, Harry West and Basil Brooke. Despite their high seat total, the UUP only polled 335 votes more than the DUP across the council’s seven DEAs, so watch closely to spot any shift of power within unionism when the results come in after May 18th.
At the last poll, the SDLP held just five of the eight seats they’d won in 2014. The party suffered particularly in the Omagh area with the loss of two high profile former councillors who ran as independents, one of whom, Josephine Deehan, won her seat. Alliance were also able to capitalise on the division in this DEA and their first ever councillor elected in the region at the SDLP’s expense.
An unaligned independent did damage in Mid Tyrone, with Emmet McAleer stealing a seat from the SDLP which the party would be keen to win back. Likewise, Sinn Féin dropped a seat to an independent in Erne East, and another to Cross Community Labour Alternative in Enniskillen who will need to consolidate their vote if they hope to retain it for a second term.