The 1985 Irish local elections were held in all the local government areas on Thursday, 20 June 1985. There were two tiers of local government areas. The state was divided into local government areas of administrative counties and county boroughs under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Within administrative counties, there was a second tier in certain areas of boroughs governed by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 and the 1898 Act, urban districts governed by the 1898 Act, and towns with town commissioners governed by the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854. The elections had been postponed from June 1984. This allowed the Local Government (Reorganisation) Act 1985 to be enacted beforehand. Each local government area was divided into local electoral areas (LEAs) to be elected on the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV).

Administrative changes

Under the Local Government (Reorganisation) Act 1985: Two Electoral Area Boundary Commissions proposed changes which were implemented by order of the minister:

Results

County, city and town council seats

Sinn Féin, Independent Fianna Fáil and the Waterford People's Party were not registered political parties.

Counties and cities

Sources

Citations