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It's been a long day at the election count in Newry Sports Centre where candidates from across four of the district electoral areas are finding out if they have been elected to serve in Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. Shortly before 8am a queue had already formed outside the centre and counts have been progressing slowly throughout the day.
Counts for Slieve Gullion, Crotlieve, Downpatrick and Mournes have been running through the day and as of 11.45pm none have been completed.
To Date just 9 candidates have been elected out of 25 so it could be longer still before all are deemed elected. It has been a Sinn Féin success story with 8 of their candidates elected so far: Willie Clarke and Michael Rice, Mournes; Aoife Finnegan, Declan Murphy and Aine Quinn, Slieve Gullion; Oonagh Hanlon, Downpatrick; Selina Murphy, Crotlieve and Leeanne McEvoy, Mournes. The DUP have so far taken one seat with Glyn Hanna the first to be elected what seems like many hours ago.
Unfortunately Newry along with Rowallane and Slieve Croob won't be counted until tomorrow but the plan is to complete the four that are already in progress by end of business this evening but anything is possible.
To be continued ...
