New mayors have been elected in Kerry and Limerick City.
Fianna Fáil Councillor Norma Foley, the outgoing mayor of Tralee, has been elected to the chair of Kerry County Council.
She takes over from Fine Gael's Cllr John Sheahan.
A teacher in Tralee and daughter of the late Denis Foley TD, Cllr Foley has been a town councillor since 1994, and county councillor since 2004.
Fianna Fáil, with ten councillors, is the biggest party on Kerry County Council, and under a pact with Fine Gael the party took both the chair and vice chair of the county council at its annual general meeting in Tralee today.
Cllr Foley's election was unopposed.
All AGMs of the councils in Kerry took place today.
Two of the four Kerry Municipal District chairs went to women.
Fine Gael's Cllr Aoife Thornton was elected to the chair of the Listowel MD, while Fianna Fáil's Cllr Norma Moriarty took the chair of the South and West MD, the largest geographical district currently in the country.
The new mayor of Kerry was proposed by her political colleague, Cllr John Joe Culloty of Killarney and seconded by Cllr Michael O'Shea of South and West Kerry, and also Fianna Fáil.
Cllr Culloty said Cllr Norma Foley's way of doing things would be "pragmatic, approachable and patient".
Cllr Foley is only the fourth woman to hold the chair of Kerry County Council since 1899.
In her acceptance speech, she paid tribute to her late father Denis.
Twenty-five years ago he too was elected to the chair of the county council.
2018 was the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage and too often they had been "airbrushed" out of Irish history, but not just in Ireland: as the English writer Virginia Woolf noted, everywhere "anonymous was a woman", she said.
Among the mayor's priorities for the year ahead will be promoting the Kerry Tourism brand, business development which was now part of the council's role, as well as lobbying central Government for better housing, roads and infrastructure in its broadest sense.
Cllr John Joe Culloty has been elected vice chairman of Kerry County Council.
Labour's Cllr Graham Spring has been elected mayor of Tralee, and Cllr John Sheahan of Fine Gael as outgoing mayor of Kerry, takes the chair in Killarney.
The selection of chair of all four municipal district elections went unopposed.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael Councillor Daniel Butler has been elected the new Metropolitan Mayor of Limerick city.
Cllr Butler was elected by 12 votes to seven, defeating Sinn Féin's John Costello.
Cllr Butler was co-opted to Limerick City Council in 2014 following the death of his father, the late Cllr Richard Butler, who also served as Mayor of Limerick.
The newly elected mayor was first elected to the council in 2015 and represents the Limerick City West area.
He also works as a drugs education and prevention officer in Limerick.
Cllr Butler's party colleague, Cllr Elenora Hogan, was elected Deputy Mayor.
The election for Mayor of Limerick City and County takes place on Friday.
Additional Reporting: Cathy Halloran
