1990 Irish presidential election

1990 Irish presidential election

7 November 1990
Turnout	64.1%
130x130px FF 130x130px Nominee Mary Robinson Brian Lenihan Austin Currie Party Labour Party Fianna Fáil Fine Gael 1st preference 612,265 (38.9%) 694,484 (44.1%) 267,902 (17.0%) Final count 817,830 (51.9%) 731,273 (46.5%) Eliminated
President before election Patrick Hillery Fianna Fáil Elected President Mary Robinson Labour Party

The 1990 Irish presidential election was the tenth presidential election to be held in Ireland, the fifth to be contested by more than one candidate, and the first to have a female candidate and winner. It was held on Wednesday, 7 November 1990.

Nomination procedure

Under Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland, a candidate for president could be nominated by:

• at least twenty of the 226 serving members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, or
• at least four of 31 county councils or county boroughs, or
• a former or retiring president, on their own nomination.

The outgoing president, Patrick Hillery, had served the maximum of two terms, and no other former president was living.

Candidates

Brian Lenihan

Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence was chosen by Fianna Fáil as their candidate, though he faced a late challenge for the party nomination from another senior minister, John Wilson. Lenihan was popular and widely seen as humorous and intelligent. He had delivered liberal policy reform, for example relaxed censorship in the 1960s.

Austin Currie

Fine Gael, after trying and failing to get former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and former Tánaiste Peter Barry to run, ultimately nominated the former Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and SDLP member Austin Currie. Currie had been elected to the Dáil in the 1989 general election and had been a minister in Brian Faulkner's power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland from 1973–1974. However Currie had little experience in the politics of the Republic.

Mary Robinson

The Labour Party, along with the Workers' Party, nominated Mary Robinson, SC, a former Labour Party member and liberal campaigner who had served as a senator for University of Dublin from 1969 to 1987. Robinson was a former Reid Professor of Law in the Trinity College Dublin and had been involved in the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform and the campaign to save Wood Quay.

Campaign

Lenihan entered the race as odds-on favourite; no Fianna Fáil candidate had ever lost a presidential election. However Lenihan was derailed when he confirmed in an on-the-record interview with freelance journalist and academic researcher Jim Duffy that he had been involved in controversial attempts to pressurise President Patrick Hillery not to dissolve the Dáil in 1982. After the contrast between his public denials during the campaign and his eventual confirmation of his role during his earlier interview recorded in May the Progressive Democrats, then in coalition with Fianna Fáil, threatened to join an opposition motion of no confidence unless Lenihan was dismissed from the government or an inquiry into the 1982 events was set up. The incident caused Lenihan's support to drop from 43 to 32% with Robinson going from 38 to 51% Taoiseach Charles Haughey privately asked Lenihan to resign, and sacked him on 31 October—a week before the election—when he refused to do so leading to a sympathy vote for Lenihan; his support in the polls going from 32% on the 29th of October to 42% on the 3rd of November (with Robinson's support dropping from 51 to 42%).

At this point Cabinet minister Pádraig Flynn launched a personal attack on Mary Robinson, accusing her as "having a new-found interest in her family", an attack that was itself attacked in response as "disgraceful" on live radio by Michael McDowell, a senior member of the Progressive Democrats, which up to that point had supported Lenihan's campaign. Flynn's attack was a fatal blow to Lenihan's campaign, causing many female supporters of Lenihan to vote for Robinson in a gesture of support.

Lenihan received a plurality of first preference votes. Robinson received almost three times as many votes as Currie, and 76.73% of Currie's votes transferred to Robinson, beating Lenihan into second place and electing Robinson as Ireland's first female president.

Result

1990 Irish presidential election
Party		Candidate	Nominated by	% 1st Pref	Count 1	Count 2
	Labour Party	Mary Robinson	Oireachtas: Labour Party and Workers' Party	38.9	612,265	817,830
	Fianna Fáil	Brian Lenihan	Oireachtas: Fianna Fáil	44.1	694,484	731,273
	Fine Gael	Austin Currie	Oireachtas: Fine Gael	17.0	267,902
Electorate: 2,471,308   Valid: 1,574,651   Spoilt: 9,444 (0.6%)   Quota: 787,326   Turnout: 64.1%

First preference vote
Lenihan			44.1%
Robinson			38.9%
Currie			17.0%

Final percentage
Robinson			51.9%
Lenihan			46.5%

Results by constituency

First count votes

Constituency	Currie		Lenihan		Robinson
	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%
Carlow–Kilkenny	9,941	18.8%	23,808	45.1%	19,054	36.1%
Cavan–Monaghan	10,049	21.2%	25,365	53.6%	11,923	25.2%
Clare	7,956	18.3%	21,669	50.0%	13,745	31.7%
Cork East	7,048	18.5%	16,928	44.4%	14,124	37.1%
Cork North-Central	6,038	15.5%	15,020	38.6%	17,832	45.9%
Cork North-West	8,414	27.7%	13,843	45.5%	8,162	26.8%
Cork South-Central	9,254	17.3%	18,176	33.9%	26,226	48.8%
Cork South-West	8,623	29.1%	11,957	40.4%	9,034	30.5%
Donegal North-East	3,958	17.1%	12,834	55.3%	6,397	27.6%
Donegal South-West	4,794	19.0%	13,344	53.0%	7,058	28.0%
Dublin Central	4,711	12.3%	17,855	46.7%	15,683	41.0%
Dublin North	3,931	11.4%	14,812	43.1%	15,637	45.5%
Dublin North-Central	4,752	12.7%	16,658	44.5%	16,064	42.8%
Dublin North-East	3,690	11.0%	13,939	41.3%	16,082	47.7%
Dublin North-West	2,795	10.1%	11,611	42.0%	13,240	47.9%
Dublin South	9,646	17.0%	17,948	31.7%	29,103	51.3%
Dublin South-Central	5,578	13.0%	16,847	39.4%	20,394	47.6%
Dublin South-East	5,528	16.6%	10,573	31.7%	17,262	51.7%
Dublin South-West	3,661	9.9%	15,340	41.7%	17,826	48.4%
Dublin West	6,439	13.4%	21,987	45.6%	19,772	41.0%
Dún Laoghaire	8,957	17.0%	14,974	28.4%	28,815	54.6%
Galway East	5,629	20.4%	13,883	50.4%	8,043	29.2%
Galway West	8,094	17.6%	18,885	41.1%	18,978	41.3%
Kerry North	5,192	17.2%	13,896	45.9%	11,155	36.9%
Kerry South	4,891	17.2%	14,230	50.0%	9,336	32.8%
Kildare	7,701	15.2%	21,388	42.2%	21,638	42.6%
Laois–Offaly	8,690	17.1%	25,635	50.4%	16,571	32.5%
Limerick East	7,498	17.6%	14,583	34.2%	20,527	48.2%
Limerick West	5,955	19.3%	16,055	51.2%	8,766	28.5%
Longford–Westmeath	7,716	18.7%	21,860	52.9%	11,741	28.4%
Louth	5,588	14.1%	20,134	50.8%	13,894	35.1%
Mayo East	5,023	18.7%	11,838	44.2%	9,947	37.1%
Mayo West	4,706	18.3%	12,114	47.1%	8,905	34.6%
Meath	8,174	16.7%	23,960	49.0%	16,818	34.3%
Roscommon	6,482	23.0%	14,454	51.3%	7,223	25.7%
Sligo–Leitrim	7,794	20.3%	18,917	49.3%	11,660	30.4%
Tipperary North	5,822	20.0%	14,373	49.4%	8,926	30.6%
Tipperary South	7,227	19.4%	17,317	46.4%	12,751	34.2%
Waterford	6,160	15.9%	17,236	44.5%	15,359	39.6%
Wexford	7,906	16.8%	21,790	46.5%	17,201	36.7%
Wicklow	5,891	14.1%	16,448	39.4%	19,393	46.5%
Total	267,902	17.0%	694,484	44.1%	612,265	38.9%

Second count result

Constituency	Lenihan		Robinson
	Votes	%	Votes	%
Carlow–Kilkenny	25,103	48.4%	26,733	51.6%
Cavan–Monaghan	26,796	57.7%	19,664	42.3%
Clare	22,715	53.2%	20,004	46.8%
Cork East	17,836	47.8%	19,438	52.2%
Cork North-Central	15,934	41.6%	22,346	58.4%
Cork North-West	14,896	50.3%	14,711	49.7%
Cork South-Central	19,416	36.8%	33,301	63.2%
Cork South-West	13,084	45.6%	15,640	54.4%
Donegal North-East	13,384	59.4%	9,162	40.6%
Donegal South-West	13,915	56.5%	10,730	43.5%
Dublin Central	18,648	49.5%	19,042	50.5%
Dublin North	15,458	45.5%	18,563	54.5%
Dublin North-Central	17,394	47.1%	19,585	52.9%
Dublin North-East	14,537	43.7%	18,772	56.3%
Dublin North-West	12,059	44.2%	15,281	55.8%
Dublin South	19,330	34.7%	36,473	65.3%
Dublin South-Central	17,743	42.0%	24,517	58.0%
Dublin South-East	11,358	34.7%	21,418	65.3%
Dublin South-West	15,894	43.6%	20,573	56.4%
Dublin West	22,959	48.3%	24,668	51.7%
Dún Laoghaire	16,293	31.5%	35,527	68.5%
Galway East	14,486	53.4%	12,651	46.6%
Galway West	19,875	43.9%	25,472	56.1%
Kerry North	14,669	49.3%	15,096	50.7%
Kerry South	14,812	52.9%	13,238	47.1%
Kildare	22,493	45.1%	27,467	54.9%
Laois–Offaly	26,740	53.4%	23,397	46.6%
Limerick East	15,589	37.3%	26,235	62.7%
Limerick West	16,834	55.8%	13,380	44.2%
Longford–Westmeath	22,881	56.3%	17,795	43.7%
Louth	21,070	53.9%	18,053	46.1%
Mayo East	12,362	46.7%	14,162	53.3%
Mayo West	12,566	49.5%	12,845	50.5%
Meath	25,122	52.2%	23,037	47.8%
Roscommon	15,185	54.9%	12,495	45.1%
Sligo–Leitrim	19,906	52.7%	17,882	47.3%
Tipperary North	15,119	52.9%	13,483	47.1%
Tipperary South	18,299	50.2%	18,214	49.8%
Waterford	18,170	47.8%	19,880	52.2%
Wexford	22,990	49.9%	23,058	50.1%
Wicklow	17,353	42.2%	23,842	57.8%
Total	731,273	46.5%	817,830	51.9%