Noel O’Connor will relinquish his chain of office when the new Mayor of Mallow is elected on June 27th, but on the following day he is expected to wear the mayoral chain again, this time as Mayor of Cork County. The councillor was selected to be the Fine Gael nominee for the election on June 28th, and he is odds-on to take the top job. As Mayor, Cllr O’Connor will be the head of a council with 2,780 employees and with a turnover of €460 million, and he will become the first Mallow man to take the chain of office. Prior to the vote to choose the Fine Gael nominee, Cllr O’Connor travelled all over Co. Cork, meeting and canvassing councillors for their vote, and in Monday’s ballot he defeated Cllr John O’Sullivan from West Cork. The last councillor from North Cork to serve as Mayor of Cork County was Tom Sheahan from Buttevant. Speaking to the Mallow Star, Cllr O’Connor said that while he did not want to pre-empt the vote on June 28th, he was looking forward to the challenge of serving the people of North Cork and the county: “It is a challenging job repre-senting a large county, but I am looking forward to it. Over the next year I will be travelling all over the county and I will carry out my responsibilities to the best of my ability.”
While his job as Mayor will mean stepping back a little from his work with Mallow Town Council, he will continue to serve on it until its dissolution next June. “I am very grateful to my wife Mary and family for their support and understanding,” he added. This is Cllr O’Connor’s third attempt to win the Fine Gael nomination for mayor. The outgoing mayor is Cllr Barbara Murray.