Dublin Central by-election results as Daniel Ennis holds strong lead after sixth count - live updates
Ms McDonald said it was “not our day” in Galway West after Sinn Fein candidate Mark Lohan gathered 6.5% of first preference votes based on an unofficial tally, but she said the race in Dublin Central was “tight”.Ms Boylan said that she was “very happy” with how the campaign went and said it was a “great” election for them.Asked at the RDS in Dublin on Saturday afternoon about the party’s performance, she said Sinn Fein was “building politically” and said the trajectory of Irish politics over the past 10 years was one of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s decline and the “growth of politics beyond that”.She said: “We are absolutely front and centre in that, we’re not the totality of it, we recognise that too, but we have had tremendous, tremendous success. We have grown and we will grow again.“Things don’t happen in political life – in my experience and it’s considerable at this stage – in a straight line. Things take, sometimes, detours.”Ms McDonald said Galway West had once been “a bastion of Fianna Fail” and that the result shows a government is possible without Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, while neither a Fianna Fail nor a Fine Gael TD in Dublin Central was “an image of politics to come”.“No seat, ever, in any contest, is an easy seat to win,” she said at the RDS, adding that when a general election comes, “watch and see how we perform then”.“I believe that the next general election our job, as the largest and lead party of opposition, is to lead that politics that makes that possibility a reality.”Earlier, speaking at the count centre at Galway Lawn Tennis Club, she said there was “no question on the leadership” and that she does not feel under pressure.“I am the leader of Sinn Fein, I lead us on days when we’re on a winning streak, I lead us on the days when we’re not lifting the cup,” she said.“That is my job, that’s the job of the leader. I know you’ve had to ask the question, I have now answered the question.”Asked if her leadership is under pressure, she said: “I feel under no pressure whatsoever, pressure is for tyres.“If you’re going to lead the opposition of the project of constructing a government beyond Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, a historic project, if you’re going to lead a party, a national movement and a national organisation like Sinn Fein, you don’t give way to pressure.“You have to have the fortitude, the stamina, the resilience and the concentration span to see this through.“And just for the avoidance of doubt, I have all of those qualities in abundance and I will carry on with my work.”
