Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 24 May
IT WAS A long day of counting in the two byelections at opposite ends of the country, here’s how it all played out.
Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats has taken the seat in Dublin Central left vacant by former finance minister Paschal Donohoe, bringing his party up to 12 seats in the Dáil.
Meanwhile, Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland holds a narrow lead over Seán Kyne of Fine Gael in Galway West, where it’s all to play for. Galway West has paused the count and will resume at 9am on Sunday morning.
We’ve been covering everything as it happened in two byelections that will tell us a lot about how voters feel about their constituencies – and the government.
- Updates from Christine Bohan, Rónán Duffy, Daragh Brophy and Sophie Finn, with Emma van Oosterhout in Salthill and Jane Matthews in the RDS
Good morning and welcome to today’s live coverage of the two byelection counts.
Boxes are due to be opened any minute now.
In the meantime, why not catch up with this piece from our Political Correspondent Jane Matthews on how we expect the day to play out.
Turnout in Dublin yesterday was at 39%, while in Galway it was around 45%.
Here’s a rundown of the candidates, in case you need one handy:
Hedging his bets, Cork-based businessman John O’Leary is running as an Independent in both Dublin and Galway.
As you’d only expect, we’ll be staffing this liveblog till the death tonight – or until we have new TDs elected, whichever comes first.
You can also keep track of all the action at the count centres via our dedicated politics account on X, where Jane (at the RDS) and Emma (in Salthill) are posting updates.
And we are off! pic.twitter.com/frROTNFsFA
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
The ballot boxes have been opened in Galway Lawn Tennis Club, Salthill for the Galway West byelection count.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Stick with us throughout the day for all from here and the RDS in Dublin. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/zYg3YUMbtZ
From Jane at the RDS:
“A lot of inner city boxes being opened so far and from a very early impression it looks like Sinn Féin have done a good job getting the vote out.”
Now that’s a very early take indeed, and comes with a health warning the size of the RDS showjumping arena.
From Emma in Salthill (again, health warning etc):
“Seems to be a lot of city boxes open, I can see a lot of ‘transfer lefts’. There’s plenty of number ones for Labour’s Helen Ogbu and Sinn Féin’s Mark Lohan.
“Mayor of Galway Mike Cubbard and Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland also getting plenty of first preferences.”
1 box here from Stoneybatter in Dublin Central - Daniel Ennis (Social Democrats) out on top here. pic.twitter.com/9Y5wkqlrSs
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
So how are byelection votes counted?
It can be a long process, and count staff will be preparing to work long into the evening; there’s even a chance they could be back in the morning if we don’t have a winner declared by late tonight.
At the start of the process, the votes are mixed then divided into piles according to first preferences. Suspected spoiled votes are set aside, and checks are made with the candidates’ teams to make sure there’s agreement on the invalid ballots.
The quota, the minimum number of valid votes each candidate must get to be elected, is then calculated.
As rounds of counting continue throughout the day, candidates with the lowest support are gradually eliminated and their votes redistributed across the other piles.
As these are byelections and there’s only one seat available in each constituency, whoever passes the quota first is deemed elected.
Quite a spread in the boxes being opened at the Dublin Central count – here’s the latest from Jane:
“From looking at some of the boxes being opened from around East Wall and Sheriff Street, Gerry Hutch and Malachy Steenson are both doing well, while SF’s Janice Boylan looks to be trailing them by some distance in third.
“Looking at the transfers, though, Hutch and Steenson aren’t being very transfer friendly – most ballots for ‘The Monk’ are just one vote for Hutch or a 1,2 with the number 2 going to Steenson. The few with transfers are going to Sinn Féin.”
Hutch, you’ll recall, was the surprise story of the 2024 general election and was in the running for the fourth seat in the constituency, which eventually went to Labour’s Marie Sherlock.
He wasn’t particularly transfer friendly in that vote either, save for preferences from Steenson.
Here’s Emma’s take on how things are looking at Salthill, just over an hour in:
“Cubbard and the Labour candidate, Ogbu, appear to be claiming most of the city votes with both transferring to each other.
“Fine Gael’s Kyne is seriously holding strong in the west of the city and outside of it. Thomas, of Independent Ireland, is racking up plenty of few first preferences too, with one tally taker running out of space for Thomas’s tally in the Carna area of Connemara.”
Cubbard, the current mayor of Galway, is not part of the ‘vote left’ pact in the constituency – however, on the campaign trail, he said he aligned himself with old Labour values and described himself as ‘leaning left’.
Spreadsheet guru and Virgin Media political correspondent Gavin Reilly has his traditional election spreadsheets up and running, with links over on Bluesky.
The Galway West data shows that at this point, with just over 26% of boxes opened, Fine Gael’s Sean Kyne is leading with a tally of 2,264.
Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas is next with 1,999, closely followed by Labour’s Helen Ogbu on 1,734.
Meanwhile, Reilly’s Dublin Central spreadsheet shows that over 70% of the boxes have been opened and Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan is leading the race with a tally of 3,221.
Not too far behind her is Social Democrat Daniel Ennis with 2,912, followed by Gerry Hutch on 2,275.
We’re expecting a complete tally is expected at the RDS at around 11am. No estimated timings for a complete tally as yet in Galway.
The latest photos from the RDS, courtesy of Justin Farrelly of RollingNews.ie.
🚨Here is the final tally from Dublin Central:
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Daniel Ennis (Social Democrats) - 4795 (20%)
Janice Boylan (Sinn Féin) - 4323 (18%)
Janet Horner (Greens) - 2798 (11%)
Gerry Hutch (I) - 2792 (11%) pic.twitter.com/FwNQYq6xto
So with the full tally in at the RDS, we’ve Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats out in front on 20%, with Janice Boylan of Sinn Féin on 18%.
Janet Horner of the Greens is on 11%, just ahead of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch and Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam.
Fianna Fáil’s John Stephens is way down on 4%.
The SocDems will be delighted with that performance – Ennis had been seen as a strong candidate throughout the campaign, but was edged out of the top slot in the last opinion poll, published last week.
Ennis will fare well from transfers from the likes of Boylan and Horner. The path to victory for the less transfer-friendly Hutch appears to be closing fast.
In Salthill, meanwhile, we’ve just over 40% of boxes tallied.
Fine Gael’s Sean Kyne remains out in front, followed now by Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland, Helen Ogbu of Labour and left-leaning independent councillor Mike Cubbard.
Labour TD for Limerick Conor Sheehan is hoping Ogbu will benefit from the transfers of other ‘vote left’ pact hopefuls.
Conor Sheehan TD is “really confident” with Helen Ogbu’s early tallies in Galway West. pic.twitter.com/pxpXfKWAmJ
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
“It seems like we are going to top the poll on first preferences.”
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Dublin Central SocDems TD Gary Gannon tells @thejournal_ie he is “delighted” with the result of the tallies, which have Daniel Ennis in the lead. pic.twitter.com/dYVNwuc5u8
As the wait continues, let’s take a look back at how things were going on the doorsteps over the last few days for some of the candidates in the mix this afternoon in Galway West.
Labour’s Helen Ogbu, who’s faring well in the count so far in Salthill, and the Social Democrats’ Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich said housing and cost of living were among the top issues being raised on the doorsteps, when we joined them on the campaign trail at the tail end of last week.
At the start of the week, Sinn Féin’s Mark Lohan told our Political Correspondent Jane Matthews he believed it would come down to a battle between himself and Fine Gael’s Sean Kyne when it came to the business end of this weekend’s count.
Then on Wednesday, Jane was again on duty as Kyne and his team decided to knock on the door of one of the constituency’s most well-known residents – none other than former president Michael D Higgins.
Michael D ran them, obviously.
(He didn’t, of course - he was very nice).
Noel Thomas is out in front in the tallies now in Galway, with over half of the 197 boxes open.
The Independent Ireland candidate, on 21.7%, has a slight edge on Fine Gael’s Kyne, who’s on 20.2%.
Helen Ogbu of Labour is down on 11.3% now, the Social Democrats’ Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich is on 7.1%, with Independent Mike Cubbard and Sinn Féin’s Mark Lohan further back still.
The ‘vote left’ pact will benefit the likes of Ogbu, Nic Fhionnlaoich and Lohan as other candidates are knocked out – but with both Thomas and Kyne now pulling away it’s looking more likely one of those two will clinch the seat once we have a final result.
According to Emma, at the count centre:
“The city boxes were the first to be opened just after 9am here at the Galway Lawn Tennis Club, followed by the county boxes and the postal votes.
“Thomas picked up a sweep of votes outside of the city, with Ogbu dropping – so we’ve a very different picture emerging now, compared to how it looked mid-morning here in Salthill.”
A delighted Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has been speaking at the RDS in the last few minutes.
Greens candidate Janet Horner is third in the tallies in Dublin Central this afternoon, and O’Gorman reckons the party has a “real shot” of winning back a seat there in the next general election.
Gerry Hutch has also been polling well, in fourth place according to current tallies.
O’Gorman says the strong showing for the gangland figure shows there’s too many people in the constituency who feel “totally alienated” from the political system, and that politicians need to do better at delivering basic services in more deprived areas of the capital.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman is very happy with how the Green’s Janet Horner is faring.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
She’s third in the tallies, which O’Gorman says shows the Greens have a “real shot” of winning back the seat in the next general election. pic.twitter.com/pwbGdTf4Nb
When will we have a first count, I hear you ask.
Later this afternoon for Dublin Central, possibly about 2pm, but it will likely be into the evening in Galway – maybe 6 o’clock.
It could be the morning before we have a result in Salthill, experienced count-watchers have told us at the Galway Lawn Tennis Club.
Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland has been speaking to RTÉ Radio 1 in the last few minutes.
He’s expecting an “incredibly tight” race in Galway West but reckons that, as his Fine Gael rival Sean Kyne is better known in the constituency, it may be the government party that clinches the seat.
Thomas is expecting a long wait before we’ve a first count, he said.
Mary Lou McDonald has been speaking to reporters at Salthill, and is due at the RDS later this evening.
Her party’s candidate in Galway West, Mark Lohan, is well out of the running with over three-quarters of the boxes opened.
Critics of the party will likely be preparing their attacks on McDonald, who is a sitting TD in Dublin Central; the way things are looking this afternoon, her party colleague Janice Boylan looks set to lose out on claiming a second SF seat in the area. Daniel Ennis of the SocDems is ahead on tallies.
Campaigner Gillian Sherratt, the mother of Harvey Morrison, had been up against Boylan at a party selection convention to choose a candidate back in February – but the membership voted to back the longtime councillor instead.
McDonald insisted the party remained in a strong position in Dublin Central.
“We’re very, very strong in Dublin Central” says Mary Lou McDonald as she arrives at the Galway West count centre in Salthill with Mark Lohan, Pearse Doherty and Mairéad Farrell. pic.twitter.com/191Su8CNq1
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
We’ve a full tally in Galway now, with Thomas still out in front – but not much in it at all between the Independent Ireland man and Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne.
🚨 Here is the full tally for Galway West:
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Noel Thomas (Independent Ireland) - 9,210 (20.52%)
Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) - 8,924 (19.88%)
Helen Ogbu (Labour) - 5,069 (11.29%)
Cillian Keane (Fianna Fáil) - 4,049 (9.02%)
Thomas Welby (Independent) - 3,235 (7.21%) pic.twitter.com/2T7TXIfy08
Fianna Fáil has performed miserably in Dublin Central, where we’re gearing up for the result of a first count (hopefully in the next few minutes).
Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien has been putting a brave face on the situation on behalf of his party at the RDS.
“Let’s be honest a lot of work has to be done in Dublin Central,” Fianna Fáil minister Darragh O’Brien says as he arrives at the count centre with his party’s candidate councillor John Stephens.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
It’s not been a great day for FF. Based on the tallies, Stephens is on about 4%. pic.twitter.com/G10o8M9Z97
Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis celebrates with his fiancée Chloe as the pair arrive at the Dublin Central alongside party leader Holly Cairns. pic.twitter.com/rCgZocExJe
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
SocDems leader Holly Cairns has also landed at the RDS, where she’s been lauding her candidate’s performance.
“To say it’s a good day for the Social Democrats is an understatement,” party leader Holly Cairns says as she arrives alongside Daniel Ennis who looks to have topped the poll in Dublin Central. pic.twitter.com/G7oJlZEdKz
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
A reminder – we haven’t had a first count yet, and this is far from decided.
Experienced tallypeople reckon the seat is Ennis’s based on previous transfer patterns in the constituency but Sinn Féin’s Boylan isn’t that far behind and nothing is official as yet.
Cork South-West TD for Independent Ireland and party leader Michael Collins says he’s been out canvassing with Noel Thomas for the past two weeks – he’s hoping Thomas will be confirmed as his party’s fifth Dáil deputy, but is preparing for a long weekend.
“A nearly 12% rise is an astonishing jump” says Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins, as candidate Noel Thomas emerges as one of the likely contenders to take the Galway West seat. pic.twitter.com/Wn3ellkD6u
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Mary Lou McDonald was faced with questions about her leadership as she stopped by the Salthill count centre earlier.
Sinn Féin look set to miss out on a seat in both constituencies.
McDonald herself is a sitting TD, but has never brought home a running mate in the constituency.
“There is no question on the leadership. I am the leader of Sinn Féin. I lead us on the days we’re on a winning streak,” McDonald said.
“I lead us on the days we’re not lifting the cup”
If you’re just joining us – no, we haven’t had the results of an official count in either Dublin or Galway.
There’s one imminent within the hour in Salthill, we’re told. We were expecting one in the RDS about two hours ago but… well, it has not happened.
According to The Journal’s Jane Matthews, who’s at the Dublin 4 count centre: “Someone said 15 minutes about 45 mins ago”.
Arriving at the RDS, Fine Gael candidate for Dublin Central, Ray McAdam, puts his result (looking like 5th place, 11%, from tallies) down to “the challenge of incumbency”.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
He says now is a time to “regroup” and “come back stronger and better in the time ahead.” pic.twitter.com/bVHggDER3O
The candidates are continuing to arrive at the two count centres.
Labour’s Helen Ogbu has been speaking with reporters in Salthill, including our reporter Emma van Oosterhout.
Cost of living was the number one issue on the doorsteps, she said.
Helen Ogbu says the biggest issue facing people in Galway West is the cost of living, not transport as she initially thought. pic.twitter.com/F3UNG2ovGa
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Here we are straight from the RDS. As the tallies suggested, Daniel Ennis leads the pack.
Here is the official first count:
So there we have it, as the tallies had suggested since early this morning, and indeed as was trailed by that TG4/Irish Times poll a couple of weeks ago, Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats is looking good to take another seat for the party in Dublin Central.
The party already has one seat in the constituency in the shape of Gary Gannon (right) who is pictured here with Ennis (centre) and party leader Holly Cairns (left).
Big smiles, and they may as well enjoy it, these days don’t come around too often.
Obviously he hasn’t won the seat yet but that lead of some 550 votes over the Sinn Féin candidate is a strong one and he’s likely to pick up a heavy chunk of transfers too.
So without getting ahead of ourselves we can be confident enough to say that man in the middle is the new TD for Dublin Central.
Here are those votes again from the first count in Dublin Central with the pictures alongside from our Count Centre.
There are 10 candidates left standing, here they are:
We’re getting some reaction in now too from some party leaders.
In a statement, Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris isn’t giving much away in terms of the chances for the candidates.
He has, however, added the votes of Seán Kyne in Galway West and Ray McAdam in Dublin Central together and is claiming it as a kind of aggregate win:
“I want to thank the people who have voted for Fine Gael in these byelections. In both constituencies we ran two extremely strong candidates who were grounded in their communities and whose experienced mattered to voters.
Based on the tallies across the constituencies, more people have given their first preference vote to Fine Gael than any other political party. I sincerely thank people for that. But we look forward to the outcome of the counts in the hours ahead.
I want to thank Ray McAdam and Séan Kyne – two excellent candidates, supported by a strong team of party activists on the ground in Dublin Central and Galway West and the Fine Gael family from across the country.
Thank you as well to the staff in the counting centres in both constituencies for their tireless work. Whatever the outcome in the hours ahead, today is another reminder of why Ireland is a great country with a strong and stable democracy, and we look forward to the results.”
The scale of Fianna Fáil’s disaster in Dublin Central has been laid bare with the second count now coming in.
Fianna Fáil’s John Stephens gained just 71 votes from the five eliminations in the previous round, so he is now the next candidate to be eliminated.
The bad news for Fianna Fáil is that Stephens’s total votes upon elimination is 1,120 votes, shy of the 1,244 votes needed by the candidates to get their deposit back.
Speaking in Galway, Taoiseach Micheál Martin is focusing on the Galway West constituency where he says their candidate Cillian Keane “has done particularly well” in coming fourth on the first count.
Dublin Central is a “poor result” for Fianna Fail, Martin said however.
The Taoiseach told reporters in Galway that the result was “on a par” with the 2021 Dublin Bay South byelection, where the party went on to retain a seat in the constituency in the 2024 general election.
He said: “It is a poor result, no question about that” adding that party had “difficulties in that particular constituency”.
“We’ve had historic problems in Dublin Central. We last won a Dáil seat there in 2007 nearly 20 years ago.”
Counts coming in quick succession now at the RDS.
Labour’s Ruth O’Dea just eliminated in Dublin Central on the third count.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Her 1,568 votes will now be distributed to the remaining candidates.
Strong transfers from FF’s Stephens to FG’s McAdam who was the biggest beneficiary of his votes (+553).
Here we are from the Lawn Tennis Club in Salthill where it’s too close to call as Noel Thomas (Independent Ireland) leads by about 350 votes over Seán Kyne (Fine Gael).
Here are the full results:
Speaking to The Journal earlier before the first count was done, Thomas predicted correctly that himself and Kyne would be “neck and neck”.
He said today that he feels it has come down to “recognition”, pointing to the fact that himself and Kyne are both long-standing politicians.
Kyne is in fact a former Fine Gael TD and Senator, with Thomas himself a former Fianna Fáil and now Independent Ireland councillor.
Noel Thomas, who topped the tallies (20.52%), says he thinks it comes down to "recognition", pointing to the fact that himself and Seán Kyne, who is second in the tallies (19.88%), are both long-standing politicians. pic.twitter.com/epycPAEtUY
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Here is the full result of the first count in Galway West, with the bottom five candidates now eliminated.
Just tuning in and wondering what the main storylines of today are? A few of our writers attempted to put some sense on it all based on tallies earlier.
Have the Social Democrats started a conversation about class? Will Gerry Hutch run again?
Just some of the questions that we touched on.
Hi all, it’s Christine Bohan here, taking the reins of the liveblog from my colleague Rónán Duffy as we settle in for the evening.
Our news editor Daragh Brophy said at the very start of this liveblog this morning that we’ll be here “till the death tonight – or until we have new TDs elected, whichever comes first”. Personally, I’m hoping it’ll be new TDs elected. We still don’t know when exactly that’ll be, but things have definitely quickened up at the Dublin Central count in the RDS, where there have been two counts in the past hour. Another five or so to go, so we could be looking at a result between 10pm and 11pm tonight if that continues.
Galway West is almost certain to go into tomorrow. Big question is when they will decide to break for the night. Settle in – we’ll be here for a while…
The fourth count is in from Dublin Central, with Labour’s Ruth O’Dea’s votes distributed.
Our political correspondent Jane Matthews notes that unsurprisingly, Janet Horner of the Green Party and Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats were the biggest beneficiaries with 580 and 463 votes respectively from O’Dea.
More surprisingly perhaps, Ray McAdam of Fine Gael was next in line for O’Dea’s transfers, picking up 198, followed by 109 for Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin and 103 for Janice Boylan.
This hasn’t changed the top of the table: it’s still Daniel Ennis out in front by almost one thousand votes at this stage.
Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin of PBP is next to be eliminated, and his 1,853 votes will be redistributed. These will stay predominantly left but the breakdown will be interesting. Who will benefit the most? Let’s see.
🗳️ And the results of the 4th count in Dublin Central:
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Janet Horner (G) was the biggest beneficiary of Ruth O Dea’s (L) votes, followed by Daniel Ennis.
Interestingly, VLTL doesn’t seem to have fully held up, with FG’s Ray McAdam receiving a greater share of the votes than SF. pic.twitter.com/KIXhQ8FaTt
By the way, do you have any thoughts or observations on the two byelections? What do you think they mean for the constituencies and for the parties? Throw me a line and I may include some of them in a liveblog entry later this evening. I’m christine@thejournal.ie
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns is understandably thrilled about her party looking set to win a 12th seat in Dáil Éireann.
Speaking to reporters at the RDS, she chalked her party’s success down to the fact that they ran a “hugely positive” campaign with a “message of hope”.
“To say it’s a great day for the party is an understatement,” she said. You can read more what she said in this piece by my colleague Jane Matthews.
And listen, the man isn’t even in the door of Dáil Éireann yet, but the SocDems have to be aware that it will be a battle for a smaller party to keep two seats in one constituency (although Sinn Féin proved it can be done with Eoin Ó Bróin and Mark Ward in Dublin Mid-West in recent years).
Maynooth University researcher and election expert Adrian Kavanagh made the interesting point that this would be a tough ask, but he also thinks there’s a good chance that Dublin Central could gain a seat and become a five-seater after the next election boundary revision by the Election Commission – which would make life a lot easier for Gary Gannon and Daniel Ennis.
We’ve had a fifth count from Dublin Central and (finally) a second count from Galway West in the last few minutes.
In Dublin Central, as predicted, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin’s votes found a home with Daniel Ennis, Janice Boylan and Janet Horner, who all picked up hundreds of them. No change at the top, except that Daniel Ennis has now stretched his lead over the others.
Independent councillor Malachy Steenson is the next to be eliminated and his 2,641 votes will now be eliminated. Expect to see these heavily favour Gerard Hutch.
In Galway West, there are just 365 votes between the top two candidates with Noel Thomas (Independent Ireland) narrowly ahead of Seán Kyne. AJ Cahill has been eliminated and his 949 votes will now be redistributed.
Dublin Central
Galway West
A third count is in from Galway West following quick on the heels of that second count. Noel Thomas has extended his lead over Sean Kyne to 784 votes, after picking up the vast majority of transfers from AJ Cahill – he got 439, Kyne got just 20 – but it’s still incredibly tight between the two.
Niall Murphy of the Green Party has been eliminated after that count and his 1,252 votes are being distributed now.
Daniel Ennis is the happiest man in the RDS right now, as captured by photographer Justin Farrelly for RollingNews.
Janice Boylan of Sinn Féin, pictured here with party leader Mary Lou McDonald, also looks happy with what looks likely to be a second place finish for her. Is that a good result for Sinn Féin? Expect to see that question dominate the papers in the coming days.
Mary Lou earlier said she didn’t want to say too much until there’s a final result, but noted that her party is “very, very strong” in Dublin Central, her own constituency.
“But, like with anything, it’s not uncontested in the political space,” she said, incredibly diplomatically.
Shoutout to the hardcore thousands of you who are still following the byelection results with us as it’s about to hit 9pm. Your dedication is noted and admired on this sunny Saturday evening.
If you haven’t already, check out our rather snazzy election count centre, where you can see all the results from each count as they come in (or at least, as quickly as my fingers can type the numbers in).
The main news from the sixth count at Dublin Central is that Gerard Hutch has moved into third place after he was – unsurprisingly – the main beneficiary of Malachy Steenson’s transfers.
He picked up almost 1,400 of them, leapfrogging over Janet Horner of the Green Party who is now fourth after holding steady in third all day.
Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam has been eliminated and his 3,614 votes will now be distributed. Expect to see Daniel Ennis and Janet Horner do well out of these (or at least, better than Hutch and Janice Boylan).
A little while ago (Minutes? Hours? Time has no meaning when you’re working on election count standard time), I asked you lot if you had any thoughts about the byelections. Thanks to all who mailed me. I thought these two were particularly interesting.
A reader called Mark writes:
Hi Christine,
1. A SocDem win will be the first time the party has two sitting TDs from the one constituency. Also, the win will give the SocDems a higher pecking order in the Dáil over Labour, with more prominent speaking slots.
2. The combined anti-establishment right first preference vote of Hutch and Steenson at 21% was higher than the combined establishment centre right FF/FG first preference vote of 15%. As both right independents have anti-immigrant views, a single right candidate standing on this issue in this constituency at the next general election would likely win a seat.
Another reader wrote:
I was interested to see from the most recent liveblog that The Journal seems to think that VLTL [vote left, transfer left] applies to Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin are not and have never been a left-wing party.
They pretended to be in the south for a while, but their record up North always disproved it. In recent years, despite it causing them to lose time and time again, they have shifted to the nasty side of anti-immigration and various right-wing policies.
I have no idea who is advising them, but the Far Right market is already pretty crowded. They won’t win votes by embracing bigotry. See also FF/FG.
We have a fourth count in Galway West – and a final one for today. It’s just been announced that the count has wrapped up for the evening and they’ll continue with the fifth count at 9am on Sunday morning.
Here’s how it’s looking after the fourth count. No change at the top but two candidates have been eliminated – Orla Nugent of Aontú and independent candidate Sheila Garrity – so their votes will be distributed when counting resumes in the morning.
All to play for between Noel Thomas and Seán Kyne.
Jane Matthews here, still in the RDS. In the last hour or so a rumour has swirled that Gerry Hutch was on his way down to wish Daniel Ennis well. It’s the talk of the count centre at the moment – but it’s starting to seem unlikely that he will materialise at this stage. We’ll keep you posted if anything changes.
Gerard Hutch has been eliminated from the Dublin Central race, finishing fourth overall.
Unsurprisingly, he did not benefit much from the transfers of Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam and was leapfrogged by Janet Horner of the Green Party.
His votes will now be distributed, and are likely to strongly favour Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan. Daniel Ennis has a commanding lead at this stage, however, and is more than 2,000 votes ahead of Boylan.
The most dangerous thing you can do in an election is make a prediction – and a few hours ago, I foolishly suggested that we could be looking at a result from Dublin Central between 10pm and 11pm tonight. It is now 11.20pm and we have two counts still to go.
If I was silly enough to make a second bad prediction in one liveblog, I’d say we could be looking at a result at 12.30am-ish – but don’t hold me to that.
“Things have really quietened down here in the RDS as the eighth count continues in Dublin Central,” writes our political correspondent Jane Matthews.
“Lots of Social Democrats, including Daniel Ennis, are milling around waiting for the result to become official. A large delivery of pizzas arrived about an hour ago for count staff, who are on track to give us the final result tonight.”
A thought on transfers as we wait for Gerard Hutch’s votes to be distributed.
In the only poll of the constituency, Ipsos B&A looked at where votes of Gerard Hutch (and the other candidates) would go after they were eliminated.
They found that 35% of Hutch’s votes transferred to Malachy Steenson, who has already been eliminated and will not get them. The next most-popular choice, however, was Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan, who got 27% of Hutch’s second preference votes.
If this were to be replicated now, Boylan would expect to get around 1,200 of Hutch’s 4,466 votes – which would close the gap between her and Daniel Ennis, but would not see her overtake him.
We’re expecting the next count any moment now so we’ll see what actually happens.
The eighth count is in and as predicted, Janice Boylan picked up a LOT of transfers from Gerard Hutch – 1,641, which is more than I predicted.
But it’s not enough to overtake Daniel Ennis, who remains in first place, where he has been since the first count early this afternoon.
Green Party candidate Janet Horner finishes third, and has now been eliminated. Her votes will make up the final count of this exciting byelection.
Here’s the count result from the RDS, as taken by my colleague Jane Matthews:
In non-election news: shots have been fired near the White House tonight, the FBI director has said.
News at the moment is scarce: there is a huge police presence at the scene right now. We have a news story here with everything that’s known so far.
It’s official: Daniel Ennis has just been announced as the winner of the Dublin Central by-election
Daniel Ennis picked up a huge number of transfers from Green Party candidate Janet Horner, and has been elected on the ninth count.
Thanking those who voted for him, he said “I won’t let them down”.
Some photographs from my colleague Jane Matthews as it was announced that he had won:
Here’s a video of the moment that Daniel Ennis was elected:
Daniel Ennis has been elected as a TD for Dublin Central.
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) May 23, 2026
Thanking those who voted for him, he says: “I won’t let them down.” pic.twitter.com/MOinkPKJej
Some more snaps from the scene after the final result was announced, showing Daniel Ennis surrounded by party colleagues, family and supporters.
Now is not the time for gloating, but just to note that I predicted earlier that the result would be known around 12.30am-ish
(We can just ignore the bit where I suggested it would be more like 10pm).
We’re going to leave it there for tonight. Thanks to all of you for sticking with us for this marathon coverage – and there’s still more to come.
Galway West will resume counting at 9am on Sunday morning, and we’ll be following it throughout the day. It looks like a nail-biter between Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland and Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne. We’ll see you back here on Sunday to see what happens.
Until then – good night.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say