Labour select MacRaghnaill to replace Bell on Louth County Council

The Labour Party have selected Fiachra MacRaghnaill to replace Paul Bell on Louth County Council.

The Drogheda man will be co-opted onto Louth County Council next month and replace Bell, who left politics in June to take up a role in the Labour Court. MacRaghnaill, a former student at St Oliver’s Community College and IT Sligo, will join fellow Labour councillors Michelle Hall and Pio Smith on Drogheda Borough Council and Louth County Council and completes the party’s compliment of three local representatives.

A trade unionist, community activist and environmental scientist, MacRaghnaill emerged from a three way contest in the selection convention in Drogheda but emerged victorious to claim the seat.

His father Donnchadha MacRaghnaill is himself a former councillor in Drogheda town. He ran in local elections in 1974, 1979, 1991 and 1999, being elected once in Drogheda in 1979. He also contested the General Election in 1973, 1977, 1982 and 1987. MacRaghnaill ran for Sinn Fein, the Workers Party and as an Independent while he ran for Labour in the 1999 local election in the Ardee area.

Paul Bell, a former Mayor of Drogheda, was first elected in 2009, topping the polls in Drogheda Urban for Labour. He was re-elected in 2014 and 2019 and left in June of this year, as Kevin Callan was elected Mayor of Drogheda for the new term.

Among those to offer their congratulations to MacRaghnaill were Labour TD Ged Nash and Cllr Michelle Hall, with the latter saying that MacRaghnaill “knows Drogheda inside out and will be a great asset to our Labour Council team.