2014 Wicklow County Council election

An election to all 32 seats on Wicklow County Council took place on 23 May 2014 as part of the 2014 Irish local elections, an increase from 24 seats at the 2009 election. In addition, the town councils of Arklow, Bray, Greystones and Wicklow were all abolished. County Wicklow was divided into five local electoral areas (LEAs) to elect councillors for a five-year term of office on the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV).

Independents proved to be the biggest winners in the elections, gaining 7 seats to return to the council with 10 members. Sinn Féin gained 4 additional seats on the council, leaving them with 6 councillors in total. The additional seats helped to insulate Fine Gael from significant seat losses and they remained the largest party despite losing a seat overall. Fianna Fáil gained 3 seats overall to return with 7 members and though they had more first preference votes than Fine Gael, they won 1 less seat overall. Several of the successful Independents such as Joe Behan, Christopher Fox and Jim Ruttle had former Fianna Fáil connections. The Labour Party polled disastrously in the election and were wiped out in what had been one of their former strongholds, losing all 6 seats. Outgoing councillor and outgoing chairman, Jimmy O'Shaughnessy also lost his seat in the election. O'Shaughnessy was a former Labour member. However, 2 former Labour councillors, Tom Fortune and Tommy Cullen, were returned as Independents.

It was also notable that none of the mayors of the town councils were elected. Mick Glynn (FG; Bray), Malcolm Earls (FG; Wicklow) and Peter Dempsey (Ind; Arklow) all failed to be elected, while George Jones (FG; Greystones) retired after serving over 40 years as a Town Councillor and County Councillor.

Aftermath
Following the elections, the Fine Gael group with 8 councillors, the Fianna Fáil group with 7 councillors and an independent technical group of 4 councillors came together to become the "official/government" side of the council, while the Sinn Féin group with 6 councillors, the Green Party councillor and an independent technical group of 5 councillors formed the "opposition" side of the council. One independent councillor refused to join either side and remained on his own.

Following the election, at the first Annual General Meeting of the council, Christopher Fox (Independent) was elected Cathaoirleach (chairman) of the council. John Ryan (Fine Gael) was elected as Leas-Cathaoirleach (Vice-chairman) of the council.

The "control" of the council was a rainbow coalition of Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil/Independent. The opposition side consisted of Sinn Féin/Green Party/Independent.