There is wind in the sails of the Labour canvassers as they pick their way through Tirellan Heights and Sandyvale Lawn in Galway city on Saturday morning.
This is the heart of working-class Galway, a traditional Labour stronghold, but a place that, like much of Galway West, has not been a happy hunting ground for the party in recent general elections.
But times may be changing, and the emergence of councillor Helen Ogbu as the leading candidate of the left in last week’s Irish Times/TG4 poll for the constituency’s byelection, just might be the beginning of a revival.
The party certainly thinks so, and a number of canvassers from outside Galway, including former minister for education Jan O’Sullivan, have turned up to lend their support.
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As they go from house to house in Sandyvale, Ogbu is at the centre of everything. Energetic and articulate, she is well received on almost every doorstep.
Born in Nigeria, Ogbu became the first person of colour to be elected to Galway City Council in 2024.
She came to Galway as a refugee in 2006 following death threats against her husband, Sunny Orji-Ogbu, who was murdered in Nigeria in 2010.
There is a ripple through the canvass team as news and images are shared of one of Ogbu’s large billboard-style posters, which has been defaced overnight in Oranmore with a racist slur.
“I am not even bothered about it,” says Ogbu. “Some people are going to do what they are going to do. But those people are not the real people that I am meeting. The real people that I am meeting, you can see that they are friendly, they are encouraging, they are positive.
“You have a few people who are going to do what they want to do. Maybe they see me as a threat? That could be it. I don’t know.”
The recent fuel protests, including a standoff at the Galway city fuel depot, have been seen by some as a boost for right-leaning candidates, such as Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas.
Ogbu, however, sees the fuel protests as a critique of the Fianna Fáíl/Fine Gael Coalition, rather than a show of support for the right.
“The fuel protests were not just about fuel, it was about all of the issues that are happening,” she says, listing the cost of living, housing crisis and traffic problems as key issues. “Things were just getting to that point where people were tired, they couldn’t take it any more.
“It was a period of time for them to come out and give out to the Government and tell them that we have had enough.”
If Ogbu is to be elected on May 22nd, it will require the nascent ‘vote left, transfer left’ movement, which grew up around the Catherine Connolly presidential campaign, to mature and deliver.
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“It is definitely happening. This is a left seat, it is a Labour seat. People are geared towards voting left,” she says.
“This is the beginning of something before the general election. This is one seat, but in the general election it is going to be five seats. This is a taster of what is to come for the general election.”
On Saturday afternoon, one of the architects of the ‘vote left, transfer left’ movement, Independent candidate Sheila Garrity, is busy with her canvass team in the Oranhill estate in Oranmore.
Garrity was the Galway convener for the Connolly presidential election campaign and a member of Tonn na Clé, a grassroots, left-wing social and political movement.*
“It was really important to me that we became a community on the left [during the Connolly campaign]. And we did, we worked alongside each other. People in parties who never talked to each other, we had a shared goal,” she says.
“We have built a real respect and a collegial space. We [the candidates] sat down early one-on-one and talked about what we were going to do, how we were going to try and hold this seat.
“We have met a couple of times. This is a left seat, that is the goal. Ideally an Independent seat, there is an independent political tradition here in Galway.”
While Garrity was disappointed with the 3 per cent share she received in The Irish Times/TG4 poll, she believes it is not reflective of what she is hearing on the ground.
“I have been talking to thousands of people at the doors and I have not heard the support for Sean Kyne (FG) [17 per cent in the poll] and Cillian Keane (FF) [eight per cent]. That really surprised me,” she says.
“There is a disconnect between the Government and the people. There is a real sense of an arrogance among the Government. There is a lack of care. People are really struggling.”
* This article was edited on Thursday, May 14th
