A private meeting of potential election candidates was held in Galway city last week to hammer out a potential voting alliance in May’s Galway West by-election.
Participants have agreed the broad strokes of a formal ‘Vote Left, Transfer Left’ joint strategy, which is currently being fine-tuned before a public announcement in the coming days as the race for the by-election heats up.
Representatives from Sinn Féin, Labour, the Green Party, Social Democrats, and People Before Profit (PBP ), and a leftist Independent, attended the meeting last Friday, hosted by Tonn na Clé, the non-party, non-aligned activist network which emerged from the presidential election last autumn.
City councillor Helen Ogbu (Lab ), former councillors Niall Murphy (GP ) and Mark Lohan (SF ), PBP member Denman Rooke, and non-party election candidate, Sheila Garrity, attended the meeting in Teach Solais, on Courthouse Square. Social Democrats’ election candidate, Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich, sent a representative, as she had committed to her party’s annual conference in Cork last weekend.
“We aim to support all [left-wing candidates] but also favour all equally,” said Michelle Ní Chléirigh, on behalf of Tonn na Clé, which facilitated the formal meeting. She expects all candidates to agree a pledge – currently in draft form – which commits them to principles of integrity, community, social justice, peace and neutrality.
Tonn na Clé has 340 mostly Galway West-based members – a numerous pool of potential canvassers for any candidate.
Long-standing members of a number of left-leaning political parties in Galway have publicly called for unity to ensure the seat vacated by Catherine Connolly is filled by a left-wing TD. In private, some voice reservations that ideological differences, personality clashes or historical grievances between supporters, rather than candidates, might make agreement difficult. However, there is a shared sense of ambition that a left-wing candidate can win.
The prospect of a voting pact may raise alarm bells in the government coalition parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which already expect a hard slog in the Galway West by-election, and for Independent Ireland, whose candidate, County Councillor Noel Thomas, bookmakers consistently place as favourite to win the Dáil contest after almost unseating Noel Grealish TD (RIG ) in the 2024 general election.
Speaking to the Advertiser, Cllr Thomas says he is not specifically concerned about facing a Leftist by-election pact.
“In an election, I’m concerned about everything. I’m not sure about the whole ‘Left thing’ and I think the Left may have a false sense of security from the Catherine Connolly campaign. She won because she was a good candidate, not because of her team, or her campaign, and there was no other option for the people [to vote for],” he said. “The far-left and the far-right are both bunches of lunatics, and it’s the media that drives it,” he added.
Galway county councillor Thomas Welby, an independent by-election candidate who is not a member of the putative Tonn na Clé pact, told the Irish Times last week that “if the left come together and are organised, they will win this seat, there is no doubt about that.”
Welby, who quit the Progressive Democrats (PDs ), is a member of Independents Together, a national grouping of non-party public representatives. He expects support from Senator Gerard Craughwell (Ind ), and a number of city and county councillors across Galway – mainly former PDs – who are allies of Grealish.
The writ – a legal instrument to initiate the Galway West by-election necessitated by Catherine Connolly’s election to Ireland’s presidency – must be moved before May 11, with Friday, May 22, now looking the likely date for the first by-election in Galway for half a century.
