Patricia Logue to become new mayor

The Sinn Féin representative for the Moor District Electoral Area (DEA) will be the ninth mayor of Derry City & Strabane District Council and will receive the chains of office from her party colleague, the outgoing mayor, Sandra Duffy.

Councillor Logue, from the Brandywell area, was elected to represent the Brandywell, Bogside and Creggan areas for the fifth time in last month’s local government elections.

On May 18, she received 1,069 first preference votes (14.45 per cent) and was duly elected after the fifth count to serve the constituency during the third mandate of DC&SDC.

She is one of the longest standing councillors in Derry, having been first elected in the Cityside District Electoral Area (DEA) of the old Derry City Council in 2005 when she received 801 first preference votes. She increased this to 937 in 2011.

In Derry, only SDLP councillor for the Waterside, Martin Reilly, has a matching record of long service as a local councillor. Both have been elected representatives for 18 years now.

The only councillors to have served longer are the Castlederg-based ‘father-of-the-council’, Derek Hussey of the UUP, who was first elected to the old Strabane District Council in 1989, and Allan Bresland, of the DUP, who has been a councillor based in Sion Mills since 1993.

Councillor Logue served as Deputy Mayor in 2007-8 during former DUP Alderman Drew Thompson’s mayoralty.

In the first elections to the new Derry City and Strabane District Council, in 2014, she received 997 votes (14.54%) in the new Moor DEA, which corresponded to the old Cityside area of Derry City Council.

She was returned as a councillor for the fourth time in 2019, polling 778 first preferences (10.04%).

On Monday evening, she is expected to be confirmed as the fourth Sinn Féin mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council and will become only the ninth Sinn Féin mayor in Derry’s history.