While the whole of Co Leitrim now has just one senator to its name, a total of five TDs and a senator live in or originally come from the parish of Ahascragh and Caltra, which has just 650 houses.

The east Galway parish is to Irish politics what the Coolmore Stud is to horseracing as it is the original home place of Fianna Fail TDs and siblings Michael Kitt, Tom Kitt and Aine Brady, health minister Mary Harney, Labour TD Eamon Gilmore and independent senator Ronan Mullen.

Caltra's local fountain of knowledge Mattie Kilroy, the principal of the VEC school in nearby Mountbellew, isn't sure if there's something in the local air that spawns politicians. "There is no one factor that led all of these people into politics, " he said. "The only thing is that they are all very determined people whose families would have seen a lot of hard times so that got them interested in working for people through politics."

The local political scene first took off when Eamon Gilmore Snr . . . grandfather of the current Dublin TD Eamon . . . ran for Fianna Fail in the local council elections in 1928.

The area also boasts a former Australian MP among its political figures. In the mid-1860s, Caltra man Tom Keane emigrated to England and later to Australia. He was editor of the Melbourne Star newspaper before being elected as an MP for the Melbourne government for a number of years before his death in 1944.

Five people from the area were on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and while three men perished, two women survived the disaster.

Renowned London-based milliner and designer Philip Treacy also hails from Ahascragh.

Michael Kitt Snr was first elected to the Dail in 1948, beginning the Kitt political dynasty which culminated in his two sons and one daughter getting elected to the Dail in May.

"Politics was always in the Kitt family so all of Michael Snr's children were brought up with politics. They would have all been canvassing from a young age and were always immersed in politics, " Kilroy told the Sunday Tribune.

In recent years, Ahascragh achieved national fame courtesy of the popular RTE programme Don't Feed the Gondolas. A running joke at the end of the show involved host Sean Moncrieff making prank calls under the alias 'Monica Looley from Ahascragh'.

The people of the area have mixed feelings about their village and the surrounding area being the baking bowl for so many politicians. In Cahill's bar, Dermot Cahill said: "We are proud as punch to have all these politicians from the area in the Dail and Seanad. We all just hope that they can all start working together for us in the future."

But in another pub, Alphonsus Mitchell vented his anger. "This was a great village years ago and now it is struggling to survive. Politicians are all gangsters, one more than the other, and they have done nothing for the area."

Bertie Concannon added, "All of these politicians need to do something for the roads in the area. The roads are better in every other part of Connacht than they are around here."

And a local woman said, "If you look at Ballinasloe, you can see that a lot of factories have closed there over the last few years compared to Athlone which is booming. None of the politicians in this area are willing to do for Ballinasloe what Mary O'Rourke has done for Athlone." A shopkeeper in Concannon's Mace store added, "I really don't think that having all these politicians in the area will make any difference to the people in the area."

Meanwhile, Kilroy concluded, "We had a function to celebrate having Harney, Gilmore, Michael Kitt and Tom Kitt in politics a number of years ago. I am sure the people in the area will organise something to celebrate Aine Brady and senator Ronan Mullen's addition to that list."