Monday, March 23, 2015

Areas of Ireland that have only ever had white male TDs

There is a great map on the mirror website in the article 'The UK map of white male power' of constituencies in the UK that have only ever had white male MPs

I thought it would be interesting to see what the same map would look for Ireland. The wikipedia page for Irish Women TD's is here, from it I took the list of constituencies that have been represented by Female TDs.

Ireland has not had many non white TDs. Moosajee Bhamjee is the first non white TD as far as I know. Leo Varadkar's father is Indian. And I am probably missing many more but historical demographics suggest non white Irish politicians were rare. We had a low immigrant population until recently. To keep the graph comparable to the UK one I keep the same not 'white male' filter. Please correct me with anyone I am missing.

Taking distinct constituencies from the Female TD's wikipedia page. And a map of Irish constituencies now from here. I coloured in the constituencies I could find female TDs for in green.


For some old constituencies, like Cork Mid, I could not work out where they were. One ex-constituency Limerick City–Lmk East had a female deputy, Kathleen O'Callaghan in 1921. I took the map of where this constituency used to cover when she represented it and turned that area in the east part of Limerick-West green.
Map of Limerick City–Lmk East in 1921

Another Dublin North has completely changed its location. When Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll represented it in 1923 it covered what is now Dublin North-East. So this area is also coloured green.


The constituencies I could not find a female TD for were: Cork South-West, Limerick West and Louth. The constituencies wikipedia listed as having had a female TD are Carlow–Kilkenny, Cavan–Monaghan, Clare, Clare–Galway South,  Cork East, Cork Mid, Cork North–Central, Cork North–East, Cork North–West, Cork South–Central, Donegal North–East,   Donegal South–West,   Dublin Ballyfermot, Dublin Central, Dublin County Mid, Dublin Mid, Dublin North, Dublin North–Central,   Dublin North–West,   Dublin South, Dublin South–Central,   Dublin South–East,   Dublin South–West, Dublin St Patrick's, Dublin West, DĂșn Laoghaire, Galway West,   Kildare North,   Laois–Offaly,   Limerick City–Limerick East,   Limerick East, Longford–Westmeath,   Meath East,   Monaghan, Roscommon, Roscommon–Leitrim,   Sligo–Leitrim,   Tipperary North,   Tipperary South, Waterford,   Waterford County,   Westmeath,   Wexford, Wicklow .

This map looks more diverse than the UK one to me. But the proportional representation system Ireland has means we have larger constituencies with a few Members of Parliament in each. This means the same proportion of non white male Members of Parliament should cover a bigger area.
I will update this map with any corrections people give me in the comments.

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