Sinn Féin’s Boylan and Hayes of Fine Gael in pole position in Dublin

Dublin is the only one of the the three European constituencies that has any sense of geographical coherence. It’s a three-seater and may very well return three new MEPs.

In 2009 Fine Gael and Labour eased home with their two candidates Gay Mitchell and Proinsias De Rossa each getting very close to the quota after the first count.

In a dismal election for her party, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald failed to retain her seat despite finishing with more than 13 per cent of the vote. Her party’s inability to attract transfers put paid to her chances.

In the end Joe Higgins, who got fewer first preferences than her, overtook her in the later counts.

That situation has changed since then. Sinn Féin is riding high in opinion polls in Dublin and there is a sense among all political parties that it is a party on the rise. What is unusual about the party is that it has plucked a candidate from obscurity who looks like she may get elected.

Green machine The only equivalent in recent political history is Sadhbh O'Neill, who was elected a Green Party councillor in Dublin in 1991 despite

no canvassing or publicity. She was on a J1 student visa in the US for the entirety of the campaign.

Then the Greens were the party of the moment; it looks like Sinn Féin is enjoying its moment in the spotlight. It's hard to make any assessment of Lynn Boylan. A majority of people who will vote for her will do so without knowing the first thing about her.

But that’s the thing about European election campaigns: to describe them as superficial would give them a profundity they don’t deserve.

Candidates will not be tested or challenged. In the early part of the campaign Boylan displayed some ropey knowledge of European institutions. It didn’t really matter. She is acquitting herself okay these days. Sinn Féin’s rigorous media training is evident in her responses: “We are not Eurosceptic or Europhobic; we are Eurocritical.”

It’s a strange strategy but is certainly no more cynical than Fine Gael throwing celebrities into an election in the hope that people might forget they are voting for reasons that vaguely touch on politics.

Irrespective of that, Boylan should be assured a seat. While opinion polls show her coming in first, the lower percentage of voter turnout among her base will probably mean second to Fine Gael's Brian Hayes.

His party’s support has dropped significantly since the general election but has shored up compared to Labour and against the backdrop of a still-volatile electoral landscape.

And there we move into lottery territory.

The latest Irish Times Ipsos MRBI poll puts Mary Fitzpatrick of Fianna Fáil slightly ahead of the posse. In 2011 the party fared slightly better in the election than it did in polls. If this phenomenon repeats itself, and if she could give herself a buffer of 3 or 4 per cent over her nearest rivals, she may not be caught. In addition, she is not transfer-averse as her party was in 2011.

The others are Eamon Ryan and Emer Costello. And if they are all close, the outcome will depend on who is ahead on the first count. Costello needs to be ahead of Ryan and very close to Fitzpatrick.

Ryan would also need to keep the gap below 1 per cent between him and his main rivals. Nessa Childers’s transfers will be critical.

Opinion polls prior to the run-up to the 2009 elections underestimated support for Joe Higgins. So neither of the far-left candidates, Paul Murphy nor Bríd Smith, can be discounted. But the notion that they will block transfer to each other is fanciful.

It’s a hard call.

The first two will be Hayes and Boylan. The third could be a toss-up between Fitzpatrick, Ryan and Costello, with the FF candidate a slight favourite.