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IF YOU THINK of political issues in Galway, you think of traffic. And as you sit there inching slowly forward through the gridlock, you start to understand why the stalled ring road project has been the city’s great hope for so long.
So where do Galway’s politicians stand on the topic? A by-election to fill the Dáil seat of Catherine Connolly after her election to the Áras gives them a chance to put their plans forward.
But the message from several of those standing for election is that Galway’s choked roads can no longer wait for the project, as the The Journal heard when visiting the city this week.
Among those who are supportive are Labour councillor Helen Ogbu, but she told The Journal that “immediate transport problems” need to be looked at with public transport and cycling paths to take advantage of the city’s mostly flat streetscapes.
Another candidate, Sheila Garrity, ditched the car for the bike after getting sick of the gridlock.
“We’ve been talking about the ring road for 33 years,” Garrity said.
“I’d be in favour of it if it doesn’t stop other things,” added the college lecturer said, pointing to 2021 council report showing that “just 5%” of the total traffic crossing the River Corrib at peaks is bypass traffic.
So the ring road won’t solve the congestion of Galway – it’s good for the small bit of traffic that’s bypassing the city but I don’t know how it’s going to service the people coming into the centre. That’s where park-and-ride, priority busses and cycling infrastructure come in.
The by-election is expected to take place by May and the ballot sheet has been filling up lately. Fine Gael recently selected senator and former TD Sean Kyne, however, larger parties like Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin are yet to confirm their candidate.
Understandably, the by-election hasn’t caught the public imagination just yet. Most confirmed campaigns were not fully up and running as The Journal visited this week.
Given the week that was in it, many of the candidates turned out to protest outside Education Minister Hildegarde Naughton’s office over the uncertainty facing special education services.
Dozens of parents, SNAs and supporters protesting outside Education Minister Hildegarde Naughton’s constituency office in Galway city this evening.
— Eoghan Dalton (@EoghanDalton) February 25, 2026
Many very unhappy over the uncertainty on schools’ SNA roles
- @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/ouOTWthghq
Ogbu and the Social Democrats Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich both took turns on the loudhailer to rally the hundred-strong crowd, while other candidates such as Independent Ireland councillor Noel Thomas and Aontú’s Orla Nugent attended in support.
Garrity – who was a long-time canvasser for Connolly in her pre-Áras days – is standing as an Independent but she not particularly interested in being seen as a ‘Connolly continuity’ candidate.
“I’m not going to claim that as a title,” she said laughing, before adding: “I’m on the left and I hope a lot of people in Catherine’s campaign would support me.”
An Irish-Canadian, Garrity was raised in Toronto by her parents who had emigrated there during the 1950s and she moved to the city full-time in 2001.
She remembers being immersed in the Irish-Canadian community while growing up on the the other side of the Atlantic.
“There was the Irish dancing, I was heavily involved in the GAA scene – I met my husband through the GAA there,” she said, a circumstance helped by her parents running an Irish-Canadian community centre in Toronto.
The tradition has continued, with Garrity’s daughter leaving Ireland for Toronto after encountering housing difficulties here.
And it’s on housing where the conversation took a turn, as Garrity voiced anger over the crisis. “I believe that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael accept that certain amount of human misery is the outcome of how they do business. They can live with that.”
When challenged on how her opponents would strongly contest this, Garrity didn’t relent.
“I know three people in my circle of friends who have been given eviction letters in the last month by their landlords,” she said, referring to sweeping new rules that come into effect today.
Like Garrity, Ogbu did did not grow up in Ireland, having come here from Nigeria in the early 2000s. She won a seat on Galway City Council two years ago.
Ogbu spent a number of years living in Direct Provision with her daughter, after coming to Ireland over fears for their safety due to Helen’s late husband Sunny’s involvement in Nigerian politics.
Tragically, “he was assassinated when standing for election”, Helen said. “He was concerned for me and my daughter’s life which was why we came to Ireland first.”
After exiting Direct Provision, Ogbu has spent the past several years as a community development worker in the city and hopes to be the first Labour TD since Michael D Higgins.
As the first person of colour on the council, she said she has faced plenty of racist messages online. “Go onto my Facebook page and you’ll see it,” Ogbu said.
But I want to say the people of Galway are so welcoming and loving – they believe in me and they wouldn’t have voted me in as a councillor if they did not.
Galway West is a vast constituency that spans far beyond the city, encompassing Gaeltacht communities in Spiddal and Connemara.
It’s the latter where resident and native Irish speaker Nic Fhionnlaoich is putting herself forward for the Social Democrats.
She works remotely from her parents’ house in Connemara for the party’s Dublin Rathdown TD Sinead Gibney, who she ran the successful 2024 Dáil campaign for.
When it comes to communities like those in Connemara, it’s all about “nuts and bolts” issues, Nic Fhionnlaoich explained.
“I used to think it was a bit of a flex when I was a teenager to be able to tell your friends, ‘we’ve got clean water in our house’. if you want to make Gaeltacht communities work, you have to look at not just housing but also really basis stuff like sewerage.”
The Journal will be catching up with other candidates in both the Galway West and Dublin Central constituencies ahead of the by-elections on May 22.
So far, the other confirmed candidates in Galway West are Sean Kyne for Fine Gael, Denman Rooke for People Before Profit and Independent Thomas Welby.
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