{"id":416869,"date":"2026-04-25T12:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416869\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T12:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:55:14","slug":"gerry-the-monk-hutch-returning-to-ireland-for-dublin-central-by-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416869\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerry &#8216;The Monk&#8217; Hutch returning to Ireland for Dublin Central by-election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gerry &#8216;The Monk&#8217; Hutch has confirmed his intention to run in the Dublin Central by-election.<\/p>\n<p>He said he will return to Ireland from Lanzarote to sign nomination papers in the coming days.<\/p>\n<p>Hutch lost out on a seat in the general election, finishing in fifth spot in a four-seat constituency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll go over, pay my fee, and sign on the dotted line and then the race is on,\u201d Hutch told the Irish Independent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I\u2019ve as equal a chance as anyone else who\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sinn F\u00e9in leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/mary-lou-mcdonald-dismisses-leadership-speculation-at-ard-fheis-1891620.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> was asked whether it will damage her party&#8217;s candidate in her own constituency.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald replied: &#8220;Every candidate has to go out and fight their campaign. These are competitive processes, with all due respect.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So wheoever chooses to go ahead, they&#8217;re entitled to, that&#8217;s their business. My focus is on our campaigns.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at her party&#8217;s Ard Fheis in Belfast, McDonald also dismissed speculation about her leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Asked directly if she would lead Sinn F\u00e9in into the next general election she said: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The D\u00e1il seat became available when Fine Gael\u2019s Paschal Donohoe stepped down to take up a position at the World Bank.<\/p>\n<p>The deadline for registering as a candidate is May 1st and the by-election will take place on Friday, May 22nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerry &#8216;The Monk&#8217; Hutch has confirmed his intention to run in the Dublin Central by-election. He said he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-416869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}