General Election: Ward and McConalogue take last two seats as Pringle loses out

Charles Ward and Charlie McConalogue have taken the final two seats in the Donegal constituency with outgoing Independent TD Thomas Pringle losing his seat.

McConalogue, the outgoing Minister for Agriculture, and Ward from the 100% Redress party were elected on the 16th count at the Aura Leisure Centre in Letterkenny.

The confirmation came at around 1.40am on Monday.

Ward and McConalogue were deemed elected without reaching the quota.

Pringle inched ahead of McConalogue on the 14th count, but the Killybegs representative all but conceded defeat at that stage with his margin not enough to stay in a seat he has filled since 2016.

Sinn Fein pair Pearse Doherty and Padraig Mac Lochlainn were elected on the first two counts on Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday morning.

There was elation and relief among the 100% Redress contingent as Ward - just over a year after the formation of the party - took a seat.

The battle for the remaining seats was on a knife edge for much of the weekend and four three into two was never going to fit and, ultimately, Pringle was the faller.

After taking 6,862 first preference votes, Ward was to be in a dogfight for transfers - and came good to take his place.

Ward took 39% of transfers from Mary T Sweeney, that surge of 1,318 votes on the 11th count taking him significantly up the pecking order having taken 27%, or 598 votes on the elimination of Niall McConnell on the preceding count.

The 2,147 transfers Pringle gained following the elimination of Noel Jordan proved helpful but it wasn’t enough with McConalogue earning a landslide from Nikki Bradley and John McNulty, the eliminated Fine Gael duo.

In February 2020, McConalogue edged in ahead of Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher to retain his seat. He had only 358 votes to spare when the sums were tallied on that occasion.

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This time around, McConalogue earned 8,019 first preferences with around 4,000 of those taken from the Inishowen peninsula.

For much of the day on Sunday, Pringle’s team were steadfast in their confidence of taking out McConalogue once it became apparent that Ward was in the driving seat for a seat.

However, Noel Jordan exiting the race ahead of Bradley proved a major turning point as McConalogue held on with Pringle losing out.