‘As a woman and an elder, I have a lot of experience’: Meet Ireland’s older local election candidates (2024)

Age is no obstacle to high political office, as shown by 81-year-old United States president Joe Biden. Nor is it a barrier to running in Friday’s local elections, with first-time candidates ranging in vintage from 18 years to 89.

“Mad, Bad and Dangerous” is the campaign slogan of first-time local election candidate Margaretta D’Arcy, who will turn 90 one week after the vote.

After many years of activism, she decided that 2024 was the year to put her “hat in the ring” for the local elections as an Independent candidate in Galway City Council.

She had been approached to run by Sentient Rights Ireland, which advocates for animal rights, human rights and the environment.

At first she said no, but after reading Paul Gillespie’s article titled “Overworked, older and mostly male: Ireland has Europe’s weakest local government” in The Irish Times last month she changed her mind and said: “I’ll do my bit for women and diversity.”

D’Arcy’s activism stretches back to the Greenham Common campaign which opposed bringing cruise missiles into Europe, and the Committee of 100 group, a British anti-war campaign. She was a supporter of the Shell to Sea campaign in Mayo, and was involved in the protests at Shannon Airport in 2014 over the opposition to the US military’s use of the airport. Found guilty of illegal incursion on a runway, she received a suspended three-month sentence. After she refused to sign a bond to uphold the law and stay away from unauthorised zones at Shannon Airport, her sentence was reactivated and she served 9½ weeks at Limerick Prison and the Dóchas Centre at Mountjoy Prison.

For that reason her main campaign points include endorsing neutrality and ending “Ireland’s complicity with the US war machine”. Among her other priorities are making Galway’s streets safe and accessible and improving local democracy.

“As a woman and an elder I have a lot of experience to raise these issues,” she said.

D’Arcy described local government as “the bedrock of local society”. Canvassing on Galway’s streets and in shopping centres, she added: “I’ve had a very positive response. People like the opportunity to meet and talk with local election candidates I want to ignite imagination among councillors as they can do better.”

Toni Devine is also running in the local elections for the first time – and at 78 she is Sinn Féin’s oldest candidate. The experience has been “great craic”, she said. “They didn’t realise how old I was when I decided to run. They respect me for doing it. Everyone has been lovely.”

Bidding to be elected in the Carndonagh local electoral area in the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal, she said a huge reason behind her decision to run was a desire to see more women involved. “I’ve been a feminist for all of my life, the personal is political,” she said. “Come on girls! Let more of us take part in the next election.”

Donegal County Council has only one woman councillor, Niamh Kennedy, an Independent, who is running for candidacy as a sitting councillor after two other female councillors stepped down and will not contest the election.

Sinn Féin is putting seven women forward for the local elections in Donegal. “Sinn Féin is honouring the bid to have a 50/50 government. As a feminist, that is a great thing.

“We need women with different interests, from all walks of life, no matter the age, in politics.”

Devine is canvassing door to door. She jokes that she doesn’t canvass uphill but instead she sticks to the flat ground.

Living in an area badly hit by defective concrete in homes, she says it is the main issue with voters. “It’s a national issue and a national disgrace. It is not about money, it’s about people’s lives. It’s killing people.”

Recently she read An Old Woman of the Roads by Padraic Colum, a poem she remembered from school about the value of having a home. She describes how it shows the emotional side of what those who have been affected by the defective concrete crisis are going through.

Sinn Féin’s 100 per cent redress policy for homeowners affected by defective concrete was important to her.

“If these things go on, they ripple through the community,” she says. “Underneath politics are people’s lives.”

Devine has previously been involved with the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and the Northern Irish Women’s Aid Federation and helped to found the Derry Well Women. She worked as a teacher and a lecturer and while she was in England she worked as a social worker.

“Civil rights and activism, it’s in my bones,” she said. “Life informs my politics.”

After failing to get elected after running for the first time in 2019, Leslie O’Hora had no plans to stand in this year’s local election.

That was until the Green Party candidate attended the Mary Robinson Climate Conference in Ballina. “A scientist said we will be facing ‘stage four’, the full effects of climate change, if we do not make changes.”

O’Hora thought about his eight grandchildren and knew he had to do whatever he could to make a difference.

At 71 years old, he will run in the Carrick-on-Shannon electoral area.

His activism stretches back to his teens – at 14 he was fundraising for Unicef. He took part in civil rights marches in the 1960s and, more recently, the anti-fracking movement in Leitrim. He got involved with the Green Party after seeing how their “policies came from the ground up”.

By last week he had visited more than 2,000 homes in the Carrick on Shannon area. “I have a good osteopath,” he joked. “She keeps me together.” On the doors, the main issues he hears are health and infrastructure. O’Hora would like to develop more Local Link transport facilities, offer more amenities to young people, and improve health services with frontline diagnostics, community-based nurses and advanced nurse practitioners.

As well as the traditional canvassing methods, O’Hora has spread his election campaign to Facebook, Instagram and X. He said he was told to stay off TikTok by his fellow candidates. “My moves were not as good,” he joked.

Away from the first-time candidates, Mary Hilda Cavanagh is the longest-serving elected member in Kilkenny and the longest-serving female councillor in Ireland. She has no intentions of stepping away any time soon, at the age of 73.

Cavanagh has been an elected member of local government for 50 years in the Castlecomer electoral area, first getting elected in 1974 and has been elected without fail at every local election since.

While she was at University College Dublin she joined the Fine Gael branch. Garret FitzGerald was her economics lecturer.

She thought that you had to have your name down a few times to get elected but to her surprise she got voted in on her first attempt. When she began in local politics there was no salary, but she described it as only being “one tenth of what the work is now”.

Cavanagh worked as a secondary schoolteacher, teaching “history, economics, a bit of French and a bit of maths”.

Since she first began working as a local councillor, the constituency has increased in size.

“I know most of the people personally. Its important to keep politics close to people, if they have a problem, they can pick up the phone. The personal touch is very important.”

When canvassing this year, housing is the biggest issue. “It’s mentioned over and over again. The lack of affordable housing is a huge issue,” Cavanagh said.

Issues relating to planning, red tape for farmers, waiting lists for health services and immigration policy are also frequently raised on doorsteps.

Reflecting on her experience of local politics, she said it was much more difficult when she was younger and starting out in the job as she was a full-time teacher and had four children to raise.

In the early days, few homes had a landline and many locals would call into her home for a cup of tea and a chat. “It was face-to-face when it came to dealing with issues.”

After spending half a century as a councillor, Cavanagh still thoroughly enjoys her work. “I enjoy people, working for them and with them. I love local politics.”

When asked what advice she would give to first-time candidates, she said: “Be honest, committed, truthful and fair.”

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