Bradley Bytes: Performative politics in Galway West as “mute” Noel Thomas finds his voice on Facebook!
Noel Thomas, in a video selfie posted on Facebook, welcomed Galway County Council’s Roads Programme for 2026. In particular, the Independent Ireland Galway County Councillor singled out an allocation of €110,000 for works on a road prone to flooding outside the playground in Maigh Cuilinn village.
So far, so normal. Local politician welcomes grant of funding for local road is the bread and butter stuff of Councillors, and particularly ones like Thomas who is running in May’s Galway West bye-election.
What was unusual was not what Thomas said in the social media post, but what he didn’t say in the County Council chamber when this issue was discussed hours before he filmed the video .
Noel Thomas was mute at the Conamara local area meeting of Galway County Council on Tuesday afternoon when the roads allocation for Conamara and County Galway was discussed by management and his fellow councillors.
Thomas said nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nought. Faic. Not a thing did he say during the entire one-hour meeting dedicated to discuss the roads programme. And yet hours later, Thomas found his voice to record a video selfie to thank staff, welcome funding, and lament that the allocation wasn’t enough.
The councillors who did speak hadn’t anything earth shattering to say. But Pádraig Joe Joe Mac an Iomaire (FG), Eileen Mannion (FG), Máirtín Lee (FF) and Tomás Ó Curraoin (RSF) all gave their tuppence worth.
That’s what we elected them to do; that’s what they’re paid for.
Officials in the County Council – and his fellow elected reps in Conamara – must be wondering why Thomas didn’t thank the staff of Galway County Council in person and publicly for the record and minutes at Tuesday’s meeting, instead of recording a video for Facebook clicks.
Another case of performative politics, and the ‘politics of clicks’ for social media.
Trolley lady
More performance politics, this time from Helen Ogbu. Tackling concerns over the ongoing lack of tea trollies on the Galway to Dublin trains, the Labour Party bye-election candidate got innovative.
During one journey last week, Councillor Ogbu uploaded a video of herself online as an Iarnród Éireann ‘trolley dolly’ carrying a makeshift ‘trolley’ made from cardboard.
It contained all sorts of refreshments and goodies from Lidl or Aldi, which she distributed for free to passengers.
Top marks for innovation although the video is unlikely to stir Irish Rail into action.
Paddy Power fail
More evidence of bookmakers’ poor grasp of the Galway West bye-election.
On March 26, Paddy Power offered odds of 14/1 for Sinn Féin’s Kevin O’Hara – despite him being defeated by former City Councillor Mark Lohan at a selection convention in Moycullen days earlier.
Paddy Power was also offered odds on City Councillor Peter Keane to win the bye-election despite the former mayor not being interested in and not being nominated to contest Fianna Fáil’s selection convention.
When they’re so sloppy giving odds for candidates who clearly are not in the race, can you trust the odds bookies give for those who have declared?
Bye-election history
Social Protection and Gaeltacht Minister Dara Calleary, Fianna Fáil Director of Elections in the Galway West Bye-election, presided over the party's selection convention in Salthill two Sundays ago where Councillor Cillian Keane was selected to run.
According to the Irish Independent, Calleary, rallying the troops, declared at convention that Fianna Fáil had gone “against the head” to win a bye-election in Galway West when they were in Government in the past.
Of course, regular readers of the Tribune know this is untrue. Fianna Fáil won the 1975 Bye-election in this constituency, when Máire Geoghegan-Quinn took the seat, but they were an opposition party, not the government, at that time.
Liam Cosgrave, Taoiseach since 1973, was leading the National Coalition of Fine Gael and Labour, and Brendan Corish was Tánaiste and Minister for Health.
SF double standards
Mairéad Farrell was one of the many Sinn Féin politicians in the Republic who called for Dáil Éireann to be recalled from its Easter break to debate the ongoing fuel crisis.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians were not pleased with this populist rhetoric. Among them was Councillor Alan Cheevers (FF) who wondered if journalists in the South were going to ask Mairéad and her colleagues whether SF would call for Stormont to return from its Easter holidays.
“They are flat out asking about the Dáil coming back early. They are in power in the North and don’t seem too concerned (Stormont hasn’t returned),” snorted Cheevers.
Winner alright?
Former champion jockey, and Fine Gael MEP, Nina Carberry visited Galway last week, to canvass for the party’s bye-election candidate, Senator Seán Kyne.
We hear Nina and Seán, while in Claddagh, were spooked by the security detail at President Catherine Connolly’s home.
They canvassed the Connolly household but only got to speak to First Gentleman, Brian McEnery, whose wife, Uachtarán na hÉireann, did not appear at the doorstep to indicate a preference in the bye-election.