1994 Cork North-Central by-election
by-election to the 27th Dáil

A Dáil by-election was held in the constituency of Cork North-Central in Ireland on Thursday, 10 November 1994, to fill a vacancy in the 27th Dáil. It followed the death of Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) Gerry O'Sullivan on 5 August 1994.
The writ of election to fill the vacancy was agreed by the Dáil on 18 October 1994.
The by-election was won by the Democratic Left candidate Kathleen Lynch, a member of Cork City Council. It was the second and final time Democratic Left would ever win a by-election.
Among the candidates were Senator Billy Kelleher, who would later serve as a TD, Colm Burke who would also go on to serve TD, Cork County Councillor Michael Burns, and Cork City Councillors Jimmy Homan and Con O'Leary.
On the same day, a by-election took place in Cork South-Central.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1994 Cork North-Central by-election” is by-election to the 27th Dáil. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cork, North-Central and by-election, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “by-election to the 27th Dáil” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96368345. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “1994 Cork North-Central by-election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.