BANDON-based Fianna Fáil councillor Gillian Coughlan is expected to become the new county mayor at this Friday’s Cork County Council AGM, the second West Cork representative to do so in three years.
Cllr Coughlan – who will be the county’s fourth female mayor – will take over the mayoral chain from outgoing mayor Cllr Mary Linehan Foley in a hybrid chamber/online ceremony, the first of its kind in the Council’s history. A history and English teacher at Cólaiste an Phiarsaigh in Glanmire, Cllr Coughlan topped the poll in the 2019 local elections with 18.65% of the vote in the Bandon Kinsale Municipal District.
Cllr Coughlan had previously been co-opted into the Council seat in 2016, following the election of her Fianna Fáil colleague Margaret Murphy O’Mahony to the Dáil.
Cllr Coughlan’s expected election as county mayor is as a result of a voting pact agreed between Fianna Fáil and Independent groupings in 2019, which ensured that the role of county mayor would be shared between them for the following five years. Cllr Cathal Rasmussen (Lab) is expected to be elected deputy mayor.
• See next week’s Southern Star for a full interview with the new mayor.
