Galway West byelection: Is Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas transfer-friendly enough?

“Noel doesn’t seem to be pulling in the city on second [preferences] so it’s all to play for,” Independent Ireland’s Michael Fitzmaurice said.

On Thursday, as evening turned to night, Independent Ireland was closely analysing The Irish Times/TG4 poll for the Galway West byelection. Its candidate Noel Thomas, who left Fianna Fáil after he was closely associated with controversial anti-immigration protests in Galway in 2023, had been tipped to be the front-runner for the May 22nd plebiscite.

Thomas had declared his intention to run more than five months ago, almost as soon as President Catherine Connolly had won the October 2025 election. Independent Ireland had hoped that Thomas’s early advantage and the party’s ability to capitalise on the recent fuel protests could result in a very politically significant win for what is still a very small Opposition party.

Even allowing for the small sample size, the 4 per cent margin of error and the general unpredictability of byelections, the narrow lead that our poll has given Seán Kyne (17 per cent of first preferences) over Thomas (16 per cent) has led to some concern about Independent Ireland’s ability to win transfers.

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“It would look as if Seán Kyne would have a fair advantage at the moment, because if you look at the voting patterns, the older people seem to be going with Seán Kyne and he does seem to have a good second number 2s coming in,” Fitzmaurice told the Joe Finnegan Show on Shannonside Northern Sound on Friday morning.

Thomas and Independent Ireland are aware that he is weaker in the city, where the overwhelming majority of the electorate live.

In March of this year, the party opened a Galway city office for Thomas as part of an effort to build his base with the more urbanite voters. Our poll also shows that Thomas could be vulnerable to poor transfers, with his popularity plummeting to 7 per cent when voters were asked for their second preference.

But there is potential for him to pick up votes if or when candidates such as Independents Thomas Welby (6 per cent) and Mike Cubbard (7 per cent) or Aontú’s first-time candidate Orla Nugent (4 per cent) are eliminated.

Welby, a gene-pool Progressive Democrat whose father ran for Fianna Fáil, is a political ally of popular Independent Noel Grealish. While there is friction between Welby and Thomas, there is a non-zero chance that some voters could transfer from the Independent to Independent Ireland.

Cubbard, another interesting Independent, seems to have benefited from his strong local profile as mayor of Galway. Cubbard defines himself as being a centrist or even centre-right, but his campaign has been supported by some of those who were involved in Connolly’s successful presidential campaign.

Kyne’s early lead tells a really interesting story, given that the established candidate is running in a constituency where there was huge local support for the recent antigovernment fuel protests that blocked Galway port. Some local Fine Gael councillors had even been out in the early days of the protest supporting demonstrators.

What appears to be a strong performance for Fine Gael may come down to the simple advantage of running a tried, tested and trusted local high-profile candidate. It may also come down to what Michael Healy-Rae famously and repeatedly declared as the people of Ireland’s lust for “tar, tar and more tar”.

Roads emerged as the most important byelection issue for 27 per cent of those polled, and it is difficult to overstate how big a deal transport and traffic is locally. A taxi driver carrying The Irish Times at a glacial pace through the choked Galway streets earlier this week gestured to the futility of the cars trying to nose and nudge their way through the city and declared: “Welcome to Galway.”

Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich, the Social Democrats candidate, told local radio earlier this month she had to wake up at 5am to have enough time to get from Connemara to a Galway city studio for her post-9am interview.

Kyne and his Fine Gael colleagues were no doubt relieved when what at times felt like the Sisyphean plans for a new Galway ring road were finally approved by An Coimisiún Pleanála just one month before the byelection campaign. There may be a recognition locally there is merit in having another Government TD to advocate for their area.

Labour’s Helen Ogbu (at an impressive 12 per cent) and possibly Social Democrats’ Nic Fhionnlaoich (9 per cent) will be hopeful that the organised Tonn na Clé left-wing movement will bring more crucial transfers their way and make them competitive, in a constituency where being part of such an alliance is perceived to be a big advantage.

Not so for Sinn Féin’s Mark Lohan, a relatively low-profile and former unsuccessful local election candidate, who is polling at a poor 7 per cent for what is the most popular party in the country. According to the party’s social media, Mary Lou McDonald is the only one of the main three party leaders who has not yet been canvassing in Galway West.

Based on our poll, there’s little point in her making the journey and missing a day knocking on doors in what will now be the crucial Dublin Central contest for Sinn Féin.

For Fianna Fáil, the constituency that was once dominated by consistent poll topper and party grandee Éamon Ó Cuív appears, at this juncture, to be a lost cause – with debut candidate Cillian Keane polling at 8 per cent.

As a special treat, our Inside Politics podcast Friday wrap came a day early this week as Pat Leahy, Jack Horgan-Jones and Hugh Linehan parsed the results of the poll in detail.

UK elections: Good day for Reform

The good fortunes of Labour in Galway West are quite contrary to the fortunes of its sister party on the other side of the Irish Sea. Online today we have coverage of the UK local elections, which may pose (yet another) existential threat to Keir Starmer’s premiership of the UK Labour Party.

The heavily anticipated gains of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK started to materialise from the early hours of Friday morning, with the populist right-wing party dominating erstwhile Labour heartlands. At the time of writing, Labour has already lost more than 200 seats, but we will still be waiting for more results throughout this afternoon and this evening.

In Wales, Labour’s more than a century of electoral success in the principality is well and truly over. Labour has already admitted defeat and conceded that it will not be forming a part of the next Welsh government for the first time in the history of devolution.

In Scotland, the Green Party is reportedly “buzzing” while Scottish Labour is bracing for dire results. As is the case in Wales with Plaid Cymru, the SNP is also set to profit on Labour’s misery. What is interesting is that there is little evidence of a rise in nationalism in either Scotland or Wales; what’s far more palpable is a rise in disillusionment with the status quo.

Knives are already out for Starmer, but he has said today that he would not “walk away” despite a very difficult day for the party.

The Conservatives are also suffering losses, which at the time of writing had already breached more than 100 seats. With high turnout being reported in parts of England, and with a jubilant Green Party also celebrating some landmark successes, the former two-party political system that had defined British politics has been destroyed.

We will have more updates for you and more results as we get them.

Elsewhere, the inaugural winner of the Fifa Peace Prize, US president Donald Trump, is calling the Iranian leaders “lunatics” as the ceasefire disintegrates amid strikes and counter strikes over the Strait of Hormuz.

We have a live blog bringing you all of the updates from the Middle East.